


And One To Play

by tackytiger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Community: hp_drizzle, Friends to Lovers, HP Drizzle Fest 2019, Happy Ending, Hospitalization, M/M, Magical Theory, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Police Brutality, Post-Hogwarts, Rimming, Secret Relationship, Violence, competent Draco Malfoy, depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter are the best team in the Auror Department, even when they're driving Gawain Robards up the wall.When Malfoy is injured on a mission, it causes Harry's magic to go haywire. Meanwhile, a mysterious criminal is draining people's magical cores and turning them into Squibs.Can Harry stop blowing Malfoy away in time to solve the case? And will Malfoy ever stop trying to get the last word?





	1. Their Dearest Songs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaesterChill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaesterChill/gifts).

> Spoilers ahead! Please read for more details on the violence/police brutality tags.
> 
> This fic _does_ include the unnatural death of a minor character, and we are present for the death. It's not particularly graphic, but it is definitely descriptive of the method of death, so please do avoid if this will cause distress. I have tagged it with a major archive warning, just to be on the safe side, but it's not very gory, I promise.
> 
> There are also some mild, non-graphic descriptions of injury and bleeding. It's a case fic, after all!
> 
> Most of this occurs in chapter 3 so you can read up until then if you like! (There's a minor injury in chapter 1 so blood is mentioned but it's not graphic).
> 
> There are also some depictions of Auror violence against suspects (I've added a tag for police brutality). Lethal force is used in chapter 3.
> 
> The title is taken from the poem During Wind and Rain, by Thomas Hardy.
> 
> This is for maesterchill, le grá.
> 
> Huge thanks to o and q for all the help with this fic. They go so far beyond the titles of Alpha or Beta—they are always there with advice, support, honesty, and general excited flailing. I am very lucky to have them.
> 
> And finally, thank you to the mod for all their hard work.

Draco Malfoy is in his element, and Harry Potter can't tear his eyes away. The usual state of affairs for a Wednesday morning at work, then.

"So we believe when the perpetrator attempted to _Reducto_ the wall behind me and Auror Potter, Auror Potter's disarming spell—when combined with my localised _Protego_—had an adverse reaction which caused his spell to backfire upon him. And _that's_ how he ended up in that tree." 

Malfoy nods at Harry—a minute, self-satisfied dip of his chin—and smiles brightly at Robards from across the desk.

Robards does not return the smile. 

"Auror Malfoy, are you trying to tell me that you and Auror Potter—two of my most senior members of staff, vastly experienced in both defensive and offensive spells, and well-versed in simple containment charms—managed to bungle your bog-standard spellwork so spectacularly that you caused a civilian to be projected into a Bashing Beech during a routine premises search?"

Malfoy's eyes widen innocently, his silvery lashes starry and distracting. 

"Civilian?" The word is laced with disdain, though accompanied by a smile that keeps Malfoy _just_ on the right side of insubordinate as he continues.

"Guv, Salicorn _did_ try to stick me with his Potions knife when Auror Potter and I entered his workshop. So spare me the innocent-until-proven-guilty line. And I don't wish to speak out of turn, but Auror Potter and I are _highly_ accomplished wizards. We can't help it if our combined casting is a bit much for the criminals to handle."

Even Robards' lips are starting to quirk a little bit now, but his voice is dry.

"Ah yes, I'm glad you mention the workshop, Auror Malfoy. Because it is very surprising to me that you managed to hurl Salicorn into a tree when you were all indoors, fifty feet away from the surrounding vegetation. And of course there's the small matter of the workshop being left in, shall we say, a state of disrepair, following your raid. And though the prisoner doesn't exactly have a lucid memory of the arrest, he definitely recalls what he described as some sort of...unusual weather pattern?"

Malfoy is really enjoying himself now, Harry can tell, and he lets a tone of pure outrage enter his voice.

"Well, guv, as I recall it _did_ seem a bit cool for this time of year. I had to wear my winter-weight uniform, do you remember, Potter? As to the rest, we can only assume that it was Salicorn's own _Reducto_ rebounding that caused the roof to be ripped off the workshop, thus facilitating the perp's sudden ejection out of the scene of the crime. Auror Potter and I were certainly far too preoccupied with following Auror-approved arrest protocol to cast any spells that might explain the damage. You _have_ had _Priori Incantatem_ performed on our wands, I assume?"

Robards nods, eyes narrowed, and Malfoy dusts his hands off decisively and rises to leave. He's the picture of professionalism and decorum in his pristine uniform. The brass buttons that run in a line down his surcoat from throat to thigh are impeccably polished, his boots are buffed to a mirror-like sheen. He's perfect.

"Well, in that case, I take it that's all for today? Auror Potter and I are very busy on this case, and I'm sure you don't want this small matter holding things up any further, especially since you have our wand log to prove we followed protocol to the letter."

Malfoy manages to sound both brisk and slightly disapproving, which is quite a feat considering that Robards is not only their boss, but is starting to do that thunderous, intimidating thing with his eyebrows. Harry had seen trainees turn pale at the mere sight of an eyebrow twitch from Robards, let alone the full-on glower. However, Harry and Malfoy have been on the receiving end of the glower so often that it's lost its currency a bit. They're made of sterner stuff, which is lucky, because Robards isn't done with them yet.

"Of course, Auror Malfoy. I wouldn't want to interrupt the valuable work you're doing. I would just like to hear Auror Potter's take on the incident."

Now he turns to Harry, and the glower morphs into a suspicious glare. 

Harry has been Malfoy's partner for five years now, and they were trainees together for three years before that. If there's one thing he's learned, it's that he should _always_ go along with Malfoy's plans. Even when they seem dangerous, or a bit mad, or even completely pointless (and Harry is still surprised by how many of Malfoy's plans are a combination of any of those things), they tend to work out in the end. Harry has stopped worrying about it, and just goes along with it, for the most part.

Robards is still glaring, and Harry knows from long experience that the only way through this is to brazen it out. He shifts in his chair, slouching down even further, legs spread, and nonchalantly crosses his arms over his chest. His jeans are so well-worn that the weft over the knees has the texture of damp parchment. His boots are battered, laces fraying. He's wearing his work robes at least, for once, but he has slung them on haphazardly and left them open over his shirt (and it's one of Malfoy's least favourites today - the gold Prada one with purple stitching down the front that Harry adores but always causes Malfoy to look pained). 

Harry doesn't even need to glance to know that Malfoy is looking him up and down, and rolling his eyes in resignation. Harry doesn't care - he didn't join the Aurors for the uniform after all. As Harry loves to remind Malfoy, he wasn't wearing an elaborately embroidered pelisse with gold frogging and Ministry insignia on the lapel the day he defeated Voldemort, was he?

"Well, Potter? I'm waiting. Do you have anything to say about this incident?"

"I do," Harry replies, and pauses. 

Robards waits, expectantly, and Harry just lets the pause hang in the air. Robards' eyebrows are starting to quiver now, and Harry is wondering if he could actually push Robards over the edge one of these days. He decides that today is not that day, though—he and Malfoy have a criminal to catch, after all.

He gives Robards his best smile—the slow-dawning, distracting one; the one that Witch Weekly described as 'sun and steel, intimate yet devilish' in the last charity photoshoot he had done with them—and leans in confidingly to answer, "What Malfoy said."

* * *

Robards does shout a bit after that, but it's half-hearted at best and it's nothing that Harry and Malfoy haven't heard before. It's not long before they're dismissed, and they leave Robards muttering to himself about _bloody impudence, if it wasn't for their solve rate, still don't know how he ended up in that blasted tree_.

They're both sniggering by the time they get out the door, and when Harry intercepts Robards' robust door-shutting charm, and pulls the door gently shut instead of letting it slam as Robards had intended, Malfoy has to actually lean against the wall, shoulders shaking, until he gets his giggles under control. 

"Bloody hell, Potter—no wonder he's so desperate to reassign us to different partners. You're a bad influence on me."

"I think you more than hold your own in the pissing-Robards-off stakes, Malfoy. Though I admit, today the eyebrows of doom were definitely focused more on me." 

It's like old times, Harry thinks for a moment, like it used to be before _the wind thing_ happened and changed things—made them careful of each other in a way they never used to be. 

"Ah yes, the eyebrows had a life of their own today. I think you've broken him, Potter," Malfoy wheezes, and that sets them off again, until Harry is holding himself up against the wall too, and a group of trainees scurrying past looks at them curiously.

Malfoy pulls himself together, with some effort.

"Alright, the trainees already think we're absolutely barking—let's get out of here before they come back this way and we lose every bit of authority we have," he says.

Harry nods, even though he knows that the trainees are so terrified of them that there's absolutely no chance of that happening any time soon. Malfoy made McClintock cry during duelling class just last week, and in their first defence practical, Robertson had run away when Harry sent an _Alarte Ascendare_ her way. Actually dropped wand and scarpered. Malfoy had spent the rest of the class pissing himself laughing about it, the prick.

They shove themselves off from the wall and stroll down the corridor towards their office. Their shoulders bump once, companionably, and then Harry feels Malfoy tensing slightly, drawing himself back almost imperceptibly. He chances a sideways look, and knows by the rigid line of Malfoy's jaw and the taut muscle in his cheek that Malfoy is _remembering_. 

Malfoy slides Harry a glance, and Harry looks away, feeling a treacherous flush rising. Beside him, Malfoy sighs—a noise of gentle exasperation so very _Malfoy_ that Harry's heart gives an inconvenient leap.

"Potter," Malfoy says carefully, and Harry knows what's coming. "We need to talk."

* * *

Their office is warded to the hilt—because Harry still gets stalkers and obsessive fans, even ten years down the line from the Battle of Hogwarts, and Malfoy is a paranoid fucker (and with good reason, too, judging by how often people have tried to kill them). Malfoy drops the wards, and they settle into their respective chairs with sighs of satisfaction. 

Their office is tiny, desks shoved up against each other, a twirly chair and set of bookshelves each, a tea table, and one lone hard-backed seat for interviewees. 

Harry's side of the room is spartan, his books neatly arranged and his photos framed and charmed to display as blanks to any strangers. Malfoy's side is decorated in his particular brand of organised chaos. Files teeter precariously, viciously expensive leatherbound books from the Manor library are shoved into the shelves haphazardly, alongside Malfoy's charity shop pulp crime novels and half-drunk cups of tea. His photos are stuck up on the wall with Spellotape—Lucius and Narcissa smiling at each other over a garden table, Pansy, Blaise, and Theo piled onto a couch in the Slytherin common room, Neville blowing a kiss and then laughing uproariously, and Malfoy and Harry after their first big solve. 

In the photo, they're white-faced and a bit shaky-looking (and so they should be, considering the reserves it took to keep a _Protego_ up around the Knight Bus for so long) and so, so proud. They have their arms slung over each other's shoulders, and are holding each other up, smiling at each other and then turning their grins on the camera. Harry loves that photo, and though Malfoy has never mentioned it, it's been pinned up on the wall of every cubicle they've ever shared over five years of working together, and now on the wall of their first ever office after their promotion to Senior Aurors. 

Malfoy sets their kettle to boiling with an imperious twist of his wand, and two cups jump to attention when he jabs at them threateningly. As usual, the teabags sail through the air at a snap of Malfoy's fingers. Harry has been drinking tea since he was nine years old (sugary tea is a great comfort when you're tired, cold, and hungry) but _no one_ can make a cuppa like Malfoy.

When they're both settled and have taken the first sip of tea, Malfoy raises an eyebrow at Harry, and Harry knows it's time to talk. He sighs (inwardly—he suspects Malfoy's not as fond of his sighs as he is of Malfoy's) and opens his mouth to preempt Malfoy. It doesn't work.

"Alright, Potter. What the fuck is happening with your magic?"

Malfoy's voice is as crisp and business-like as ever, but Harry can tell that he's properly concerned. The delicate crease between his brows is deepening, and his eyes are narrowed thoughtfully. 

Malfoy leans forward, elbows on his desk, hands wrapped around his mug. His voice is low and confiding. "Potter, this can't keep happening. You _heard_ Robards back there. Salicorn noticed there was something up with the weather. If it keeps happening, someone's going to join the dots. You'll be taken out of active duty. You'd wither up stuck behind the desk here. And I'd have to find a new partner. Can you _imagine_ who they'd land me with? This is exactly what I was afraid of, and why we can't...well, you know."

The look on Malfoy's face at the thought of a new partner is one of pure horror, which Harry supposes he should take as a compliment. He wonders when he stopped thinking Malfoy's face was sneery, and started delighting in all the subtleties and nuances of his expressive features. Probably around the time he fell in love with Malfoy, he supposes. 

When Harry replies, it's only half a lie. "Look, you know why it happened. He was really going for you with that knife, Malfoy. Guys like that don't play around—he knew exactly what he was doing. But I've been looking into it, actually. And I'm pretty sure I have it under control," he says, as vaguely and reassuringly as he can manage. 

Malfoy doesn't buy it for a second. Now _he's_ doing the unimpressed eyebrow raise. "_Clearly_, you don't have it under control. Potter, you conjured a cyclone in that raid! By accident! I'm not sure how I can be more clear about how you definitely do _not_ have this under control. You blew the roof off that workshop. Literally _blew it off_. You're only lucky Salicorn got snagged by that Bashing Beech! Who knows where he'd be by now if it hadn't grabbed him as he blew past. Fucking Kansas, probably."

When he puts it like that, Harry can see how it does sound a bit bad. Obviously it's not really ideal to have some sort of freak wind-conjuring ability spring up out of nowhere. And it's definitely not ideal that it's wild magic, and totally out of Harry's control. And it's absolutely, positively not ideal that it seems to be triggered by Malfoy. Harry can feel himself blushing from his throat to his cheeks. Things are bad enough already, with Malfoy knowing how Harry feels about him. Malfoy knows, and he's turned Harry down. They've agreed to just forget about the whole thing. So why does Harry's stupid magic have to keep reminding them both?

"I've been reading up on it," he tells Malfoy. "It's called meteorolomancy, apparently. _Very_ rare, a sign of great power, according to the book I found." He's trying to distract Malfoy now, and it works for a minute as Malfoy rolls his eyes energetically and starts muttering about _smug wankers_ and _great power my arse_. But Malfoy's too much a lifelong Auror to fall for that trick, and Harry had known he'd never be able to set Malfoy off course for long.

But Malfoy has brightened up a bit now that research is on the cards, and he unerringly plucks a heavy tome from one of the dangerously leaning piles on his desk and starts rifling through it.

"Right, Potter—well, at least we know what we're dealing with now. We can start looking into it, and see if we can pinpoint the cause. Nice to see you've learned to crack a book since Hogwarts. Though I presume you've got Hermione on the case too?"

And this is the part Harry has been dreading. Because obviously he _should_ have gone to Hermione the first time this weather lark happened. She would probably know exactly what it was, but even if she didn't, she'd have the whole library of Lux College, Oxford to help with her research. But going to Hermione for help would mean telling her everything, including how the whole thing started, and Harry's barely able to unspool it in his own mind—the thought of explaining it to anyone else gives him a chill of mortification. Not to mention the fact that Malfoy would probably be horrified. 

"I've been in touch with Hermione," he says reassuringly, and it's not a lie because he Firecalled her just the other day. He just…hasn't mentioned the wind thing yet. "I wasn't sure how much to tell her about, you know, the first time?"

Malfoy's head snaps up at that, and Harry's only consolation is that the flush he can feel spreading treacherous and telling over his own face is mirrored on Malfoy—and with his pale skin, when Malfoy blushes, everyone knows it. It's so pretty on him though, Harry thinks ruefully, and then wonders if he may in fact be losing his mind. Because Malfoy, razor-sharp and lethal at work, reserved and self-contained in his personal life, would probably hex anyone who tried to call him pretty. 

Malfoy's mouth is moving though he's struggling to actually get any words out, and it seems to be a bit of an effort when he finally speaks. 

"Potter—Harry. I understand that this is awkward. For us. I mean. For you. And me. Us in that sense." And even though he's humiliated, Harry manages to feel a _bit_ amused at Malfoy's uncharacteristic incoherence. 

Harry's amusement seems to snap Malfoy out of it, and he fixes Harry with a frosty, unimpressed glare before he continues.

"Look, Potter. We know what _triggered_ this mad wind magic of yours. For the moment, let's put aside all the...physical—shall we call it, attraction?—between us."

He grimaces. "I suspect the critical aspect of this was the—urgh, Potter, trust you to make us have to actually talk about this—emotional connection between us. It somehow caused this power of yours, which had presumably been dormant until that first night, to kick in when I got injured in the Potions lab raid. So, some sort of protective instinct?

"The problem is, it's getting worse. We're Aurors, Potter—I'm going to be in danger quite a lot. And it's going to cause us problems if you unleash the bloody _Mistral_ every time some half-baked petty criminal tries to Stun me."

Harry knows all this already, has gone over it relentlessly in the deepest, quietest moments of nights when he can't sleep for worrying about what this whole thing means for him and Malfoy, and their partnership. 

He's loved Malfoy for ages—that was fine, or manageable at least. Because he's _had_ Malfoy up until now, not in every way of course (and he has to shake himself and stop his eyes dropping to Malfoy's mouth, as he thinks about all the ways he wants him), but he's had Malfoy's attention and time and trust for so long now. It was enough, up until now. 

The difference, Harry thinks, is that he's never come close to losing Malfoy before. As a team, they're reckless, and they go in hard, but they've always had talent and luck on their side. Harry had never seen Malfoy really hurt, never looked at his partner and truly imagined him gone, before that night. 

The concept of loss was what had triggered this whole thing, when Harry's power had gathered and rushed in to fill the gap he had finally had to contemplate. And now he's experienced that fear, Harry is worried that he'll never be able to rein it all back in. But he has to get control of this, he tells himself. Otherwise, at some point he's going to literally blow the whole thing down around their ears.

He takes a fortifying slurp of tea, leans forward, and nods at Malfoy. 

"You're right. It's not under control—yet. But I promise I'll get it sorted. There's never been a problem that Hermione can't fix. Chin up, Malfoy. We can't afford to get bogged down in this, not with three more assault cases coming in. Let's just concentrate on work for now, and I'll go and chat to Hermione next week and we'll come up with something. Deal?"

Malfoy looks sceptical, but he's nothing if not pragmatic. "Fine," he nods, "but keep the bit about all the sex to yourself please, Potter. I don't want to think about Granger stealing my moves to try them out on Weasley."

He smiles sweetly at Harry's look of horror, and then happily sets to reading the newest set of case files, humming softly to himself. He always did like to get the last word in.

* * *

The First Time

It's almost midnight, and Harry and Malfoy are outside an illegal potions lab. They've been working on a Potions case for six weeks now, and they've finally had a break-through. 

It's _definitely_ the lab that's making the highly addictive, extremely unstable Felix Felicis rip-off that causes euphoria, risk-taking, and manic behaviour in its users, and has lead to fourteen hospitalizations and two severe injuries.

It's also _definitely_ the headquarters of the neo-Death Eater cell that's using the potions money they glean from vulnerable addicts to fund their recruitment and Dark Arts research.

Harry and Malfoy should _definitely_ wait for back-up. They're _definitely_ not going to. 

Harry just likes to take care of things himself, and Malfoy has a reckless streak when it comes to fucking up Death Eaters. He would never say, and Harry would never pretend to understand, but he still feels he has something to prove when it comes to dealing with the bad guys. 

They hardly even need to discuss things anymore—they've had five years of sharing cubicles and offices, more than that again of long nights of drinking together, and weekends spent first studying and then playing catch up on cases. Harry never imagined that he could know anyone the way he knows Malfoy.

They're so quick, now, at planning ahead—it's the work of a moment to decide on a strategy, Malfoy's hot breath at Harry's ear, and the cool weight of his fingers at Harry's wrist an anchor and a distraction. They already know how many they're dealing with, and they go in fast and dirty, like they always do. Either of them alone could probably have taken this lot—together, with the vicious crackle and pull of their combined power, they feel unstoppable.

Harry takes the heavy-duty spellwork, and slams up a _Protego_ so strong that he can hear the vials of Fortuna Fortis clinking in their crates. Malfoy is cool as a breeze, rattling off the spells to incapacitate, bind, and subdue without a blink. He's smiling in triumph, teeth bared, and his sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, as always. His Mark is a confrontation all on its own. He's beautiful.

It's too quick, really. They have all five of the Potioneers Stupefied and Body-Bound ready for transport in under two minutes, and they're left panting and grinning at each other in delight at their sheer good luck. Now they just have to call the job in—get the magitechs sent out to log the details of the crime scene, and have some juniors get started on the inventory for their report. The hard part is over, which is why the knock at the door of the lab comes as a surprise. 

They've drawn and are in position within a heartbeat, and this time Harry spells the door to open while Malfoy wields the shield charm. 

It's customers, clearly, two of them looking for their next fix, fumbling for coins as they enter. Harry unfurls a Body-Bind on the first one before they even look up from their coin purses. The second pulls his wand but Harry's totally sure of Malfoy's shield and he just concentrates on trying to get a clear line of sight on the man. 

It's then he hears a noise that's so unexpected he takes a second to realise what it is. It's the obscene crack of a gunshot—a sound that should be so recognisable from telly but, in real life, is just unbelievable. Harry sees Malfoy's shield waver and zip down into nothing, and when he glances sideways he sees Malfoy's face is white with pain and fury. 

Malfoy's clutching his shoulder, and blood is blossoming under his clenching fingers, offensive and vulgar against his elegant hands. And as he takes all this in, during that split-second where disbelief turns to rage, Harry realises that the addict wasn't holding a wand, but a gun, and has shot Malfoy—shot Harry's partner, shot Harry's best friend—with a Muggle weapon. And even while he's cursing their shortsighted wizarding arrogance, to only ward against magical attacks, he can feel his magic gathering and roaring through his chest. 

The gunman is standing, staring at his weapon, as though shocked at what he's done, but Harry barely spares him a glance in his frenzy to get to Malfoy. He collects all of his raging magic and flings it out of himself wandlessly, channelling all his anger and protectiveness into...something. He's not even sure what he does—he's already moving to where Malfoy is swaying, but managing to stay on his feet—but he can feel his wandless magic tugging at the atmosphere like a summoning, a wordless prayer. 

There's an audible whoosh, a rush of force, and Harry can actually see the magic swirling out of the air around his fingertips towards the man. It plucks the gun from his shaking hand, as easily and sweetly as a child collecting daisies, and then in a gesture of casually brutal violence, it twists the gun back in on itself until the metal squeals in protest. 

Harry meets the man's eyes, sees him shaking his head in incomprehension. 

His own eyes narrow, and he stretches his hand out until the tendrils of power flurry back to him, kissing his upturned palm. Then he pushes them all away, sends them roaring and whistling towards the gunman until they sweep him up and slam him into the wall of the lab. When he slides unconscious to the floor, the wind subsides, retreating back to Harry and ruffling his hair gently before blinking out as if it had never been there in the first place.

Harry's by Malfoy's side now, easing him to sitting, and his wand is hot and cumbersome in his hand as he fumbles at Malfoy's shirt. He inches it off Malfoy's shoulder, quelling the desperate urge to just rip, heal, save. Malfoy deserves more care. 

Malfoy is so pale, and in so much pain, but Harry nearly sobs in relief when he checks the wound and sees it's a clean in-and-out. The bullet has bitten through the fat and muscle of his upper arm, but there's no shrapnel or debris left, and the bullet has gone out the other side. Suddenly, Harry's legs are going from under him, and he kneels with Malfoy's blood-tacky hand pressed to his cheek, and a prickle of relieved tears in his eyes. 

Harry performs the _Episkey Magnus_ in a broken whisper, and his _Tergeo_ is gentle and hesitant. Malfoy winces, stretches his arm and rotates the shoulder, and nods decisively. "It's good." And then stronger, because Harry is looking distinctly shaken, "You fixed it, Potter. I'm all better."

Then he pushes himself up to standing again, still too pale and too slow, but very much himself and blissfully, gloriously alive. He offers a hand to pull Harry up, and when he gets Harry standing, he holds him there. Malfoy's hand in Harry's is an anchor, a mooring point. Harry couldn't move if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. Not when Malfoy's hand is strong and warm in his, the elegant tendons of his wrist flexing and tensing under the brush of Harry's fingertips. 

Malfoy leans in, and he doesn't stop looking at Harry, and his fingers tighten. "How did you do that, Potter?" Harry flushes, and stutters a bit, because he hasn't a clue how he did it, and he can't think clearly when Malfoy is so near, eyes blazing, smelling of almonds and burnt sugar and something a bit sharp and peppery which Harry now realises is blood.

And even though it's Malfoy—even though he's standing so close that it makes Harry want to dip his tongue into the hollow at the base of Malfoy's throat and lick a greedy trail all the way up to his mouth—he's still Harry's best friend and partner and Harry tries very hard not to lie to him. So he tells the truth.

"He hurt you. He hurt you and I was scared that you would die. And my magic just went mad when I thought about it—about losing you. I don't know how I did it, though." 

Malfoy is very still, and he's totally clear-eyed and intent, but when he speaks, he sounds hesitant. "It was...dangerous, Potter. You could have killed him."

And for a split second, Harry can feel again the cold lick of terror down his spine when he thought Malfoy might be dead, and he needs to make Malfoy understand.

"I'd do it again, if I had to, if I knew how. I wouldn't even have cared if I had killed him. I'm scared that I felt like that, but I did. He doesn't get to hurt you like that. Fucking hell, Malfoy, there was so much blood."

Malfoy smiles at him, then—Harry's most favourite of all Malfoy's smiles, the beatific, serene one that only appears when he's really pleased about something. And Malfoy's hand tightens around Harry's wrist, and he just tugs at Harry, lightly and insistently and decisively. And it's as easy as that—and Harry is full of wonder, at how something he's worked himself up to wanting for so long can be so simple—and they're pressed together, cheek to cheek and chest to chest. 

Malfoy leans back slightly so that he can see Harry, but he keeps him tethered, as close as he can get him.

"You misunderstand me, Potter. You think I was criticising you?" His voice is a low rumble of desire and amusement and warmth, all jumbled up into something that's both breathtakingly new and gorgeously, reassuringly familiar. His mouth is moving against Harry's skin, now, his stubble a whisper against Harry's cheek. If Harry moved an inch to the side, he'd have Malfoy's mouth on his. He feels weak with wanting it.

"I'm glad you did it. He tried to kill me. I don't want to die at work. I don't want to die bleeding onto the floor of a filthy potions lab. I don't want to die, Potter. I have too much that I want to do." And his voice is so low and filthy and full of promise on that last bit that Harry finally—finally!—gets the courage to turn his face into the kiss he's been waiting for. 

When he had imagined this—and fucking hell, how many times did he imagine this?—he had pictured a lot of slamming Malfoy into walls and frantic rutting and ripping of clothes. He supposes that he had never imagined that it actually, really, might happen, especially like this. It's not aggressive. It's not a release of tension, but more of a gradual exploration of a growing need. Harry wants it desperately, but it's fond and comfortable too. He can take his time with it, he thinks. It's not what he had imagined. He could never have imagined this. 

That said, Harry is halfway to hard already, and has been from the first brush of Malfoy's mouth on his. He's only human after all, and this is _Malfoy_. In the dim recesses of his mind, the only part of him that can think anything other than _yes, fuck, more, your mouth, Malfoy_, he knows he shouldn't be surprised that Malfoy kisses the same way he does everything. He's totally focused, those extraordinary mercury grey eyes narrowed in concentration when he pulls Harry closer, only fluttering shut at the last second, as their mouths meet. 

Harry's used to having Malfoy's full attention—ever since they were eleven years old, he and Malfoy have been each other's obsession—but he could never have dreamed of being the focus of Malfoy's desire like this. Malfoy can't stop touching him, and the look on his face is raw and hungry. Harry knows that look—he feels that look.

An unexpected pleasure is hearing Malfoy narrate their kiss. Malfoy never shuts up—he never wants to, and never knows when to—and he's talking now, even with Harry chasing his mouth down greedily as if to swallow every sound he makes. 

"Harry Potter, fucking hell. I'm kissing you. You're kissing me back? Bloody fuck, you're kissing me back." A swipe of his tongue, hot and insistent, and Malfoy gasps, a soft, subdued sound that makes Harry's heart clench. "Potter, let me...yes, just there"—his teeth scrape along the ridge of Harry's jaw, and then for a blissful moment his thumbs flick over Harry's nipples through his shirt, and Harry's hips slam forward totally unbidden, and he growls with pure lust. "You like that, Potter? Just wait until I get my mouth on you. I want to taste you…" and then he's sliding his mouth down Harry's throat and sucking a mark into the velvety skin below Harry's ear, sloppy and desperate and voracious.

And then Malfoy winds both hands into Harry's hair and holds him there with a tug, just on the oh-fuck-that's-hot side of painful, and he looks at Harry and laughs. 

Harry laughs too—a bold, delighted sound that bubbles up and is pushed out of him by the feeling that his heart is jumping up into his throat—because he hadn't dared to hope that this could ever be so sweet, and so easy. And it is—nothing about them has changed, except all those years of friendship have shifted over a bit to allow room for the unfurling of this overwhelming sense of pure want. It's glorious.

"Harry, can I tell you what I thought when I saw you blasting that guy without even thinking about it?" Harry nods, shuddering at the tightening of Malfoy's hands in his hair, and then Malfoy pulls his head back and licks a hot line down his throat and then—blissfully, finally—lets himself slide to his knees in front of Harry, hands trailing decisively down Harry's flanks until they grasp at the dip of Harry's hipbones. Malfoy continues speaking, his thumbs pressed into Harry's skin just above his waistband. 

"I thought, that is the _hottest_ thing I have ever seen." His mouth descends to press heatedly at the bulge in Harry's jeans, and his hands tighten in warning on Harry's hips, holding him still. "I thought, I'm going to fuck him after this." And his voice is muffled now as he starts to properly suck around the tip of Harry's cock through his jeans, and Harry feels a bit like he might go mad with lust at the sound of it. He's wet through, just from Malfoy's maddening mouth and the slick of his own precome. And just when he thinks that he might even be able to come like this—helplessly, messily, in his jeans, with Malfoy giving him not quite enough friction, and seven unconscious criminals not ten feet away from him—Malfoy pulls his mouth away. 

His face is serious when he looks up at Harry, and with his wet mouth and Harry's stubble burn pinking a trail along his jawline, he's devastating. "You conjured _your very own wind_, Harry. Your magic is...gorgeous."

And then he starts to slide the buttons of Harry's fly open, and his smile when he sees that Harry isn't wearing any underwear is so wicked and approving that Harry's cock actually pulses, and leaves him panting. Malfoy tugs his jeans down, swears a bit, then palms his wand to vanish Harry's shoes (and he'd better be able to summon those back later) and once Harry's jeans are down, all bets are off. 

Malfoy pushes Harry back, so he's leaning against the cluttered lab workbench, and he hooks Harry's knee over his shoulder, his Cleaning Charm rushing through Harry in an inquisitive tingle. Then he's finally sucking Harry off properly, wet and slow and noisy. With one hand, he shoves his trousers open and begins to fist his own cock, but he slides his other hand under Harry's thigh where it rests on Malfoy's shoulder and then begins to roll Harry's balls gently. And then he moves his hand back along Harry's leg to lift it higher, to open him right up, and he licks all the way back to Harry's hole. 

Harry can't help anything he does then—he thrusts recklessly at the delicious intrusion of Malfoy's tongue lapping at him, and he groans so brokenly that it's very almost a sob as he rolls his hips to press harder into the answering push of Malfoy's tongue. He barely has the presence of mind to finally fling up a privacy charm—because even if the criminals are Stupefied, they're still right there—and then there's nothing but his own helpless groans and the obscene noise from Malfoy's mouth, and Harry's hands scrabbling for purchase on the lab table behind him.

Very soon—too soon—Harry has to push Malfoy away in desperation, and he turns to bend himself over the lab table. He thinks it's clear that he wants Malfoy to fuck him, but just in case he tells Malfoy so, very clearly and urgently, and it's a happy side affect that Malfoy gets all open-mouthed and frantic and nearly falls over in his haste to stand up. So it happens that Malfoy has to try his Freshening Charm twice before it takes, and they're both laughing when Malfoy spins Harry back around to face him, and hefts him up onto the table. "Like this, okay?" he murmurs, and Harry bats his eyelashes and tells him it's very sweet that he wants them gazing into each other's eyes, and Malfoy snorts and tells him to fuck off, but then he's slathering on his conjured lube and his cockhead is nudging at Harry and easing in, opening him up so gently and slowly. 

And in fact they _are_ gazing into each other's eyes the whole time, and Harry can see the desperate flare of heat as Malfoy presses in, inch by tantalising inch. And Malfoy can see the moment when Harry passes from _full_ to the need for more, so he knows exactly when to start the proper thrust and grind of his hips, his hand working Harry's cock until Harry comes furiously all over them both. It's probably embarrassingly fast but Harry doesn't give a shit. He has never come so hard, and Malfoy seems to like it, judging by the fact that about twenty seconds later he comes inside Harry while sucking Harry's spunk off his own fingers. It's _blindingly_ good. 

It's not even awkward afterwards, when Malfoy eases himself out and then just stands there with his arms around Harry, holding him up. Harry feels a bone-deep satisfaction, as he leans into the bracket of Malfoy's arms and buries his head in Malfoy's neck. Malfoy's voice is an amused murmur in Harry's ear when he says, "You realise we've contaminated an active crime scene with our DNA now?" And because he follows it with a kiss right on Harry's ear, and then buries his face in Harry's hair (and Harry thinks that might even have been a hair sniff) Harry feels brave enough to reply, "Nah, it's just your DNA contaminating the scene, so I'm alright. I think you managed to lick most of _my_ DNA off me." And Malfoy's soft cock actually twitches a bit and he groans only half-jokingly, and pulls Harry in for a kiss that's far filthier than you'd expect from two people as shagged out as they are. 

Malfoy finally pulls himself away and grumbles about gross unprofessionalism and industrial-strength Scourgifies, and Harry laughs at him and asks if he fancies getting dinner after, and also another shag later? And Malfoy actually blushes at the dinner suggestion and says he's not that hungry, why not just skip straight to the fucking, and Harry can't really argue with that. 

But the clean up isn't going to do itself, and they've got a lot still to do, so they dress and clean themselves and get going. They work as efficiently as ever, for the most part, but they can't seem to stop touching each other in passing—their hands brushing for slightly too long, Malfoy's firm touch at the small of Harry's back as he moves around him, Harry running a finger slowly down the graceful ridge of Malfoy's spine as he bends to count the crates.

It's distracting, is what it is, and Malfoy eventually pokes Harry in the chest with his wand and tells him to keep a distance or they'll never be done. "And you'll have to keep your hands to yourself in future, Harry. We can't fuck on the job again. Aside from anything else, I think it might be the thing that would tip Robards over the edge, if he ever found out." Harry laughs and chances tugging Malfoy in for a quick, last kiss, and because he hasn't got an ounce of self-control now he's finally allowed to touch, he's got Malfoy's earlobe between his teeth when he answers. 

"Okay, but we should really make the most of this, though—Robards is going to reassign us once he knows we're together anyway, so we won't be working the same cases anymore." And even as he says it, Harry feels a twist of regret. He'll never have a partner as good as Malfoy again. And because he's wondering who else he could bear to work with (not many people), and he's also rather distracted by the lickable line where the shorn silver of Malfoy's hair meets the skin of his neck, it takes him a few seconds to notice that Malfoy has gone rigid and unresponsive.

He pulls back, confused, to see Malfoy looking pale and troubled. "Why would Robards have to know about this, Potter? It's not as if it's any of his business. I am _not_ working with a new partner."

"Well, it is his business, actually. It's against policy to allow people in a relationship to partner up. You _know_ this, Draco. You've got the Handbook memorised, for fuck's sake. He has to reassign us once we tell him."

"Why is why we _don't tell him_, Potter. That way, we get to keep working together _and_ I get to find out what it feels like to have you fuck me next time. It's win-win."

But Harry is already moving, the crawl of dread propelling him away from Malfoy, and he jams his hands into his pockets to keep them from reaching out, from trying to take more than Malfoy wants to give. 

"Sorry, Malfoy—I…I don't understand. I was hoping we could...I mean, I would like it if you would be my...oh, fuck it! I have...feelings for you"—and bloody Malfoy smirks at that, like Harry knew he would—"I can't do casual. Not with you, anyway. If we're doing this, I'm all in."

Malfoy is snorting inelegantly now, and his voice is cool when he queries snidely, "Since when have you been such a stickler for the rules? I didn't see you rigorously upholding the Auror Code of Conduct when you _let all the Eeylops owls out of their cages_ two weeks ago."

Harry scrubs at his forehead in frustration. "That was a tactical move to interfere with the criminals' escape route! _And_ I managed to round almost all of them back up by the end of the day. And you can't exactly talk - while I was uncaging the owls, you were stealing two of the brooms parked outside, to head the thieves off before they could reach the Apparition point!"

"Justified commandeering for the purposes of apprehension. _Posse comitatus_, Potter," Malfoy replies smoothly. 

"We're getting off the subject, Malfoy. Look, even if we decided to keep this quiet at work—and I'm not exactly averse to that, because I don't want this to stop—don't think I don't have plans for your desk in the office—I don't _want_ to keep this a secret. Not from our friends. I don't want some secret affair that burns itself out in a frenzy. I want everything. I want things to be easy, and to be able to enjoy it. You. Enjoy...us. I won't hide this away. And you know with me, that's going to mean the press will be all over it too. We can't hope to keep this from Robards. We shouldn't even try."

Harry is in love with Malfoy, but Malfoy can still be a bit of a prick when he wants to be. He sounds exactly like Lucius when he replies, disdain dripping from every syllable. "Yes, I can see how that will work out delightfully for me, Potter. Castigated by the press, no doubt. Reassigned at work, having to work with some dull-witted, rules-obsessed, Robards-worshipping lackey—because don't think he'll miss his chance to try and put reins on me if he can, Potter. And then you and I don't work out, and we end up hating each other, and I'm out in the cold on all fronts. Not bloody likely!"

"Well, it's hardly likely to work out if you're going into it presuming the worst! For fuck's sake, Malfoy. We've been best friends for years now—oh, don't roll your eyes at me, you utter cock, you know it's true—so why would we end up hating each other? Isn't it worth a shot?"

Malfoy is silent for a beat, and he swallows hard. Then he comes closer, crowding into Harry in such a way that Harry has to steel himself not to respond physically (and really, he has to get a grip. They literally only fucked once and he's already getting Pavlovian urges to _touch_ whenever Malfoy is nearby). Malfoy places his hands on Harry's shoulders, and his voice is very, very gentle. It's worse, like this—Harry knows what to do with vicious Malfoy, but when Malfoy is soft and quiet he only wants to lick into his mouth, and hold his hand, and stroke his hair. 

"Harry, maybe this won't make sense to you. But I worked hard—_work_ hard, every day, even now—to get where I am in this job. You know I barely made it into the Auror Academy, even with my excellent NEWTs. They didn't want me, with my mark and my name and my accent and my fucking, fucking father in Azkaban. I slogged my guts out to get here—you know, you were there. And yes, I started out trying to prove myself, trying to show everyone that I'm not a blood purist and an ideologue and an evil twat anymore, basically. But along the line, I started to love it."

He eyes Harry with a quiet sort of desperation. 

"I love my job, Potter. I love it, _and_ I earned it. It's the only thing of worth that I've ever done. I cannot—I _will not_—give up everything. This is my success story, Potter. You and me, our partnership, our solve rate—it works. _Please_. Don't let's ruin what we have."

And that's it, then, Harry thinks. Because he would have Malfoy, if he could—he'd take and take, ravenous for anything that Malfoy could offer him—but he won't ask for more than Malfoy is willing to give. And Harry has his principles too. Love is not something he has ever taken for granted, not after his parents were stolen from him. And living with the Dursleys, without a gentle touch or a soft word or a sense of being _part_ of something—well, Harry realised early on that being loved was not a right granted to everyone. So when he does love, it's a fierce and powerful thing. He doesn't compromise with the people he loves, the people who have become the family he never had. He doesn't lie to them, even by omission. He can't imagine trying to hide a relationship—and such a relationship!—from the people he considers his family. 

Malfoy is watching him warily, and he brings his hands up to meet Malfoy's where they still rest on his shoulders. "I understand. I don't like it, but I do understand. But how do we go back to..._not_...doing this? Now you know that I—urgh—like you...that way?" 

What Harry doesn't say is, how am I supposed to act as though I don't want to wake up next to you every morning, and to be the one to see you safely to sleep every night, and to know you from the inside out? How am I supposed to stop touching you, now I know what it feels like to have you moving in me? How am I supposed to sit facing you across our desks, when I know what the inside of your lower lip feels like under my teeth? 

But Malfoy knows, of course—he always knows what Harry isn't saying. His smile is very sad, and desperately sweet, when he answers.

"We just do, Potter."

* * *


	2. The White Storm-Birds

The trouble is, Harry thinks ruefully, that they're not really very good at trying not to have sex again. It's only four days on from the potions lab raid, and they've already fucked again, which was absolutely not the plan. Even though Harry had years of experience of _not_ having sex with Malfoy up until now, he doesn't seem to be able to apply that experience in a practical way anymore. 

Following the raid, once the clean up is done and the techs called in, they do indeed go for dinner together, just as they always do after working late. They go to their usual Indian takeaway, get their usual order, and go back to Grimmauld, as usual. They even manage a good attempt at their usual telly and beer and chats while they eat. It's all going beautifully until the meal is eaten and they are doing the washing up.

Harry always has to do late night housework by hand—using domestic magic wakes Kreacher, who is still creepily attuned to the house. Since he's now even more ancient and creaky, yet won't accept clothes or payment, Harry wants to avoid getting him out of bed at all hours just to wash a few dishes. 

Harry and Malfoy flip a coin for the chores. Malfoy wins, as usual, and gets to wash, while Harry takes the drying. It's peaceful in the kitchen, with the candles in the sconces guttering low, and the wireless a low hum from the corner. Harry feels a bit hollowed out with how much he still wants this—anything—with Malfoy. It's like finally having him has unlocked the box into which he'd pushed all of his helpless yearning, and all the feelings have come rushing out in a fierce and all-encompassing wave. 

Harry knows he has to stop looking at some point, but for now, in the midnight silence of the old house, he thinks it's safe to keep sneaking glances at the way Malfoy's strong forearms gleam as they dip in and out of the foamy water. The trouble is, Malfoy seems to be looking back quite a bit, and the more he looks back, the more Harry wants to look again. Malfoy rinses the last glass and sets the sink to draining, but before he can wipe his hands dry, Harry is moving, grabbing, pressing him hard against the kitchen counter, and it seems like there is rather a lot to be said for this slamming and rutting business after all. 

By the time Harry frees his mouth up to say anything, Malfoy has him down to just his jeans, and at that point Harry can only hook his finger through Malfoy's belt loop and tug, hard. "Stay tonight? Please?" 

And Malfoy exhales hard and sighs grudgingly, "Yes, yes, alright, I can stay," but he's already manhandling Harry to the stairs even as he speaks. It takes them ever such a long time to reach the bedroom, and with Malfoy shedding clothes as they go, Harry is half-considering giving up and just rubbing up against him on the landing. It's worth it though, when they do get to the bed and Malfoy makes good on his intention to find out what it feels like to have Harry fuck him. Pretty bloody brilliant, seems to be the consensus, judging by his urgency as he rocks Harry into him, sinking down and rising, sweat-licked and gasping and shuddering as he comes over Harry's stomach. 

And he does stay that night, because he barely manages to heave himself off Harry's softening cock and roll himself onto the other side of the bed before he's out like a light, his face gentled by sleep and moonlight, and the long, lean muscles of his thighs painted with the silvery gleam of Harry's come.

* * *

The next morning is a jumble of confusion when Harry wakes, with the delicious, bone-deep ache that speaks of a night of being well-used, and Malfoy totally undone and sprawled sleep-heavy across him. He gets a kiss in, a quick and guilty touch of his lips to the imperious arch of Malfoy's cheekbone, before Malfoy wakes up and rolls out of bed as fast as a cat. They don't talk much before they Floo to the Ministry, but they're very late for work as it is, and Malfoy is always useless before his coffee anyway. It's fine, though, tumbling out of the Floo directly after Malfoy, and if Harry's heart aches a little when he notices a fluffy tuft of hair sticking out at the back of Malfoy's head, a casualty of the night they'd had, then no one (least of all Malfoy) has to know. 

They even chatted about it on their tea-break, and agreed that from now on they'd definitely keep their hands to themselves. Their magical assault case is escalating—in the last three weeks, four more people have been found unconscious, with their cores drained, and the Healer-in-Charge at St Mungo's thinks that, in the case of at least one of them, this time it's probably permanent. A stay in hospital and a core-replenisher had sorted all the other victims out in the past, but if people are now being turned into Squibs then Harry and Malfoy are looking at a serious problem. And Robards is going to make a serious problem for them if they don't move the case forward. 

It needs every ounce of attention and consideration they can spare. Of course, there's the minor blip that occurs when they get a tip-off about Salicorn, and go to search his workshop. It's all fine until Malfoy goes to look through Salicorn's ledger, and then Salicorn starts blowing up walls and flinging hexes around. 

The last straw comes when he snatches up his potions knife, and Malfoy only just manages to jerk himself backwards from the grim whistle of the swinging blade in time. Harry barely has time to notice the build of the wind before it's shrieking through the workshop, rending roof from frame and flinging Salicorn around like a ragdoll. That whole hurricane thing could have gone better, Harry thinks, though at least Robards seems to accept their version of events. 

But otherwise, work is good for distracting them from each other—they spend the next couple of days totally immersed in trawling through previous reports, and speaking to the fourteen victims again. 

It's a tricky one, because along with the drain on the magical cores, there is also some sort of localised Obliviate being performed. It is fiendishly clever, Harry has to admit. All the victims are marginalised, vulnerable people—potions addicts, people of no fixed abode, prostitutes. Many of them already have problems with substance abuse—so gaining an accurate read on their memories is always going to be tricky anyway. 

They all recall a sense of a benevolent personality, and some of them even go so far as to remember bits of their encounters with their assailant. They all report that they had been met with kindness, generosity. None of them had felt under threat or in danger. But not a single one of them can describe the assailant, or remember any specific details about the assaults themselves. It's utterly frustrating.

"But why—why!—would they all be so well-disposed to the person who stole their magic, Potter?" Malfoy throws his quill down in irritation as he goes over the notes he already knows by heart. "It just doesn't make sense!"

Harry has to agree. Even the witch who had been turned into a Squib—an ex-prostitute with a serious Dreamless habit who had a history of suicide attempts, and who Harry and Malfoy had arrested three times in the past for soliciting—seems more at peace than they've ever known her. She knows her magic is gone, yes, but she doesn't seem disturbed or upset by it, and she tells Harry from her hospital bed that it's the first time in twenty years that she's gone potion-free for more than a week. It's great, of course, but Harry feels...unsettled by it. It doesn't seem natural. 

"It really doesn't make sense," he agrees. "What's bothering me is that she didn't even seem to care about her magic. What magical person just...loses their power, and doesn't mind? She didn't even want her wand back from evidence...hang on!" 

And there it is, that distant thrill of instinct that makes Harry such a good Auror. There's something here, just fluttering on the edges of his memory—he just needs to snatch at it and unravel it. Malfoy knows by now how this works with Harry, and his eyes flare with interest as he walks around Harry's desk and leans against it, arms crossed, and waits. 

"What is it, Potter? Take your time. You mentioned something about her wand?"

It hits Harry then, clear as day, teased out of some remote part of his memory. He starts flicking through his files. "Bugger it, Malfoy, where's the file for the potions lab raid? I need…ah, cheers…ok—yes! Here it is. Look! Patrick Walton, the guy who shot you that night. See what it says about him? No wand was submitted into evidence. When questioned, the perpetrator confirmed that he had no wand in his possession at the time of the incident. Malfoy—why wasn't Walton carrying a wand that night? He is a wizard—Hogwarts, graduated in 1988, it says here. What wizard goes out without his wand? What wizard carries a gun?"

Harry's standing now, with the tingle of adrenaline rushing through his blood. Malfoy uncrosses his arms and stretches back a bit further on Harry's desk, his approving smile doing complicated things to Harry's insides. 

"Oh, good job, Potter. This is it, isn't it? There's something to this, we just have to follow the breadcrumbs. I knew you'd do it."

And it's his final words that break Harry's heart open just that little bit further, the unexpected but wholehearted generosity of his admiration that propels Harry forward to where Malfoy lounges against the desk, one eyebrow raised enquiringly at Harry's closeness.

Harry kicks one of Malfoy's feet gently but firmly sideways, opening up his legs, and steps in as close as he can get. He reaches out, placing his hand flat on Malfoy's front. He can feel the skittering muscles of Malfoy's stomach, that and his hard swallow the only sign that he's affected by Harry's touch. Harry slides his hand up, slow and inexorable and unerring, until he has a fist firmly twisted in the front of Malfoy's shirt. It's very simple, then, to give a hard tug and drag Malfoy's mouth onto his. Kissing Malfoy should be something he gets to do all the time, Harry thinks, as his mouth moves slow and filthy over Malfoy's and he feels rather than hears the low growl of desire as he pushes Malfoy back harder into the desk.

Malfoy is half-gasping, half-laughing, as he scrambles to pull Harry's hoodie off. "We were doing so well with the whole not-having-sex thing, Potter. Off, off! Get this monstrosity off! God, this is hideous, you should never wear clothes again—oh, it's McQueen is it? I'll McQueen you—fuck, that's better…"

Harry is properly laughing as he climbs over Malfoy and pushes him back until he's lying on the desk. "That doesn't even make sense, Draco—ow, you fucker, watch your knee—ok lie still for a second, I just want to…"

Between them, they manage to get each other topless, and they both agree that handjobs are the best option in their limited timeframe. Neither of them mentions that this is already much further than they should be going on a Thursday afternoon in the office, and that even the loosest possible approximation of the Auror Code of Conduct couldn't sanction this. Neither of them cares, frankly. 

It's easy to pour everything into kissing Malfoy breathless, when it's just them in their tiny office and the world narrows down to the taste of Malfoy's skin and the insistent press of his hips and the bloody brilliant noises he makes when his nipple is between Harry's teeth. This should be the last time they do this—it won't be the last time they do this—and Harry pushes it as far as he thinks he can. 

He lies heavy over Malfoy, and they move against each other in perfect friction. He leaves a proclamatory trail of darkening bruises from Malfoy's collarbone to his hip socket, and when he comes (so turned on from Malfoy's hand moving in an unrelenting blur over his cock, and his thumb pressed just a little too hard for comfort against Harry's Adam's apple) he swipes a hand through his own come and smears it from Malfoy's balls up his shaft, in an act of _claiming_ that sends Malfoy right over the edge too, swearing and incoherent and dazed with desire.

They don't hang around long afterwards, though Malfoy pulls Harry in for a kiss so tender and open that Harry feels flayed raw. They struggle back into their clothes, and by the time Harry has reclaimed his hoodie, and tutted over the way Malfoy left it puddled on the floor at their feet (and Malfoy has indulged in some of his more energetic eyerolling), they're back to normal. 

Better than normal, Harry thinks—his body feels relaxed and sated, and he can almost feel the thrum of his magic running cool as water around his body. And then he realises that he actually _can_ feel his magic—it's eddying and flurrying, barely a thistledown brush against his fingertips, but it definitely feels _outside_ of him. It's not so odd, this time, and when Harry raises his hand, he feels the snap and hum as everything comes together for a moment—his magic, and the sex-warm air in their office, surge together with the bright clarity of a bell chiming. He laughs in delight as he _feels_ it into being, the air around his hand beginning to whip and whirl faster until he's holding a miniature zephyr in his palm.

Malfoy's laughing his proper laugh, the one that most people don't get to see, and Harry flicks his hand to send the gusts his way, until Malfoy's hair is a cloud of ruffles and his half-buttoned shirt is pulled off one elegant shoulder. 

Harry pulls the wind back to him, and stands with his arms outstretched in delight as it darts around him in teasing little flurries, and gently lifts him off the ground and then bumps him down again. It's one of the best things Harry has ever felt, but that gunman isn't going to interview himself, so he scoops all his power back into himself until the breeze puffs out of existence. 

"Right, Malfoy, let's get this done. Though—you might want to sort your hair out before we head to the interview suite?"

Malfoy's colourful swearing follows Harry out the door, and if he shoots one final blast of wind at Malfoy's hair as he's leaving, well, who could blame him?

* * *

Even this high up above street level, Harry can catch the smell of hot cobbles and coffee and cherry blossom that is Oxford in summertime. Hermione's garret window is cracked as wide as it can go, and the clouds are wavery and misshapen through the warp of the old glass panes. 

Hermione is assembling a pile of what looks dauntingly like several hundred exam scripts, and is cheerily running Harry through a catch up on her latest research—a new history of magical education in the British Isles—while Harry makes the tea. Then it's his turn to go over his work news with her, and though it may not be strictly ethical to discuss an active case outside of the department, Harry figures that surely Hermione fucking Granger, ex-Unspeakable, war hero, and general all-round badass, gets a pass on that stuff.

"So we worked out that the shooter, Walton, hadn't been carrying a wand that night and we managed to grab hold of him before he was sent out of our holding cells to Azkaban to wait for trial." Harry doesn't mention that at the sight of the shooter he'd managed to inadvertently conjure a gale so strong that he'd nearly blown the table in the interview room over. Luckily, Malfoy's steadying hand on his shoulder managed to ground him enough to pull it back.

"It's a long story but basically we were right—he _is_ one of the victims. We didn't hear about it before because he actually comes from a fairly wealthy family, and his parents are always trying to keep him off the Potions. They have a tracker on him, and if he breaks curfew they go looking for him. When they found him the night his core was drained, they presumed he'd taken too much of something, and had him discreetly seen to by their private Healer. It was only the following morning when he woke that they realised he'd been turned into a Squib."

Hermione is fascinated, stirring her tea absent-mindedly, and Harry grins at her, knowing the story only gets better.

"But the best part is, we reckon that the person responsible didn't manage to do the full Obliviate that they usually do. When we pulled the parents in, they told us that when they Apparated in unexpectedly, they saw a witch leaning over their son, surrounded by some kind of glowing mist. But that when they interrupted, the mist sort of exploded into nothingness, and the witch Disapparated fast as lightning. But they said she seemed pretty pissed off—not their exact words—and Walton himself remembers loads of details that none of the other victims have been able to give us. Also, he's pretty fucking upset about his magic being stolen, and he's willing to testify against her when we catch her. So it seems that, along with the Obliviate, she's been manipulating their emotions somehow too—making them happier, calmer, and making them accept the loss of their magic. But she just didn't get a chance to sort Walton before the senior Waltons burst in and put a spanner in her works."

Hermione is as intrigued and delighted as he knew she would be, and she hums thoughtfully before grabbing for a book from her groaning bookcase. 

"Funnily enough," she says, "I read something the other day that might actually be relevant to this. I came across it when I was researching the weather magic you were asking about—and remind me to ask you what case that's for, actually. I don't think you've mentioned it before?" Harry shifts guiltily in his chair, well aware that Hermione's sharp eyes are cataloguing him, and that she's very probably aware that there is no case. Hermione always seems to _know_ things. She gives him one last probing glance and then returns to the book.

"Ha! Here it is. Right, so there are certain types of instinctive magic that witches and wizards can perform—as opposed to the learned magic we do every day, with wands and incantations. Children's wild magic is a good example—most of us have experienced that." She and Harry exchange and amused glance, and then she grows serious. 

"Your mum used instinctive magic when she managed to protect you against Voldemort. It often manifests at times of extreme stress, and can depend on the power of the person invoking it. But in some, much rarer, cases, instinctive magic becomes inseparable from the ordinary magic that manifests in all wizarding folk. So in the case of meteorolomancy, the magical core begins to work in conjunction with the atmosphere. We have records that describe people who were able to control the rain, summon winds, create thunder and lightning. It seems to be fairly unpredictable, and of course we don't have a proper pool of subjects to test because it's so rare.

"But interestingly, there are other types of instinctive magic that are recorded. Most of them aren't relevant here, but they are fascinating—geomancy, for instance, apparently a wizard in Italy in 1896 managed to create an army of rocks! Empathomancy—being able to harness other wizards' magic to increase the strength of your own casting! Oh, and ignimancy—imagine being able to summon the full power of fire!" She gives Harry a sheepish glance, correctly interpreting his raised eyebrows as impatience. 

"Right, sorry! Anyway, one branch of instinctive magic that I hadn't come across before is adfectomancy. It's when someone is able—without using charms, or potions, or wands—to influence or change someone's emotions. Obviously this can be benign in its way, but it's a bit chilling to think there may be people out there who can manipulate you into feeling certain things. It's basically an emotional Imperius. There's very little information about it in the library, because it manifests so infrequently. It's notoriously dangerous though. One of the practitioners I read about had to be given the Dementor's kiss in the end, as he started to manipulate people's affection so they'd make him ruler of wizarding Britain. He couldn't be arrested because he kept making the Aurors worship him, so eventually they released a Dementor into his house and surrounded the place with warding charms to prevent him escaping." She shudders. "Proximity is a factor with instinctive magic, you see, so they couldn't go any closer. And there was a group of over fifty people who ended up forming a sort of cult after his death—they never got over the emotional pull he'd exerted on them.

"Now, I'm not saying your witch is definitely an adfectomancer. But if, as you say, tests show that the victims aren't under the influence of any potions such as Calming Draughts, and they're uncharacteristically happy after such severe assaults, then it definitely _sounds_ as though this witch of yours is using adfectomancy on them. It would explain the fact that all the victims have happy memories of their assailant—that way, if her Obliviate fails, they won't pursue her for revenge or try to testify against her. She's obviously trying to hard to stay under the radar, which is worrying. What does she have planned? And why is she draining their cores? How could that possibly benefit her?"

She stares at Harry, frustration warring with curiosity in her eyes. Harry sighs, and stands to leave.

"That's what Malfoy and I have to figure out," he says ruefully, as he kisses her goodbye and takes the stairs down at a run.

* * *

Malfoy's late, is the problem, and Harry wants to get back to the office and start following some of the leads they picked up from Walton and his parents. He's antsy, with that itchy feeling he always gets on a case when things aren't progressing as fast as he'd like. In his experience, the only thing that helps is to throw himself into work. Bloody hurry up, Malfoy, he thinks. 

Why did Malfoy even have to come to Oxford with him, anyway? It wasn't as if he'd come along to help fill Hermione in—he was meeting a friend for lunch, he had told Harry gleefully, and was just glad of an excuse for an afternoon in Oxford. He had Flooed into the Radcliffe Camera with Harry, and promptly trotted off down the High towards Folly Bridge, leaving Harry to glare after him,balefully and ineffectually, in his jaunty wake. They'd arranged to meet back in Radcliffe Square, but Harry is on his third circuit and there's still no sign of Malfoy. 

Harry kicks at the cobbles and neatly sidesteps a gaggle of tourists who are peering up at the spire of St Mary's. And there—finally—is Malfoy, walking arm in arm with a very dapper, very handsome man. Harry immediately ducks behind the tourists, not sure exactly why but wanting some time to think about why seeing Malfoy walking casually with a friend might be causing Harry to feel a cold slide of jealousy from his throat to his stomach.

Malfoy isn't a toucher, is the thing. He hadn't exactly had a childhood filled with warm affection—Harry gets that—and when the Manor was occupied by Death Eaters, Malfoy had been regularly pawed at and groped by Fenrir and his gang. Malfoy was still reserved, which was why his easy physicality when it came to Harry was so precious. Harry would never mention it, but he was so proud of Malfoy's casual, affectionate shoulder claps and nudges and hair ruffling. 

So who is this...this….specimen that Malfoy seems so cosy with, Harry wonders, feeling small and mean and just a bit ashamed. Malfoy is smiling at the man, bright and interested and relaxed, and Harry feels the first tremor of a breeze. He shakes his head frantically, ignoring the curious glances from the tourists, and tries to focus his magic. It's not working.

The gathering wind nips at the heels of the tourists, sending eddies of dust to puff out of the dry cobbles and swirl around their feet. Nearby, Malfoy laughs again and then reaches in for a quick, hard hug with this beautiful man that Harry's never heard him mention. There's a crackle of tension in the air around Harry, and with a whip and a snap, the branches of the nearby trees begin to tremble and shiver. 

Then, with mounting horror, Harry realises that he can see the breeze he's conjured circling lazily overhead, juggling empty crisp packets and cherry blossom petals and shimmering dust motes. He tries to feel for it again, coax it back to him, but he's slapdash and frantic. The wind swoops, and then rushes through the tourists (who shriek laughingly) towards Malfoy. Harry swallows hard as he sees the rolling force of it flutter over Malfoy. It seems to be—oh _god_—caressing Malfoy, moving in tender licks against his cheek. Harry is hot with embarrassment.

Malfoy leans into the push of it for a second, his eyelids fluttering shut, silvery hair askew, lips parting. He sighs, once. Then his eyes snap open and his face hardens into disapproval, and he rolls his eyes at his companion before raising his voice above the murmur of the wind.

"Alright, Potter, you can come out now."

Harry decides feigned nonchalance is the only way to brazen this out, so he rams his hands into his pockets and strolls out from behind his protective wall of tourists. 

"Malfoy. You decided to finally join me, I see."

Malfoy glares at him a bit, but there's a definite glint of amusement in his eyes. "Potter, you oaf. Since you seem to have lost any small ability you may have had for social interaction, allow me to introduce you to Corbin Zabini. Corbin, this is Harry Potter, who just treated us to that little freak weather occurrence, and who you'll almost certainly know all about from Blaise?"

Corbin Zabini has a warm, strong handshake and a beautiful smile. Harry hates him, just a little. "Of course—Blaise told me all about you, during the War. Lord, we were so worried about him, off in Hogwarts while all of that was going on. He's my half-brother, my dad's a Muggle and I inherited the non-magical blood. Not that I minded too much when I heard all of Blaise's stories about school—sounds like the lot of you were lucky to make it out of there alive!"

Malfoy and Harry cough a little, awkwardly—no one who had really lived through the Battle of Hogwarts would make a joke like that, Harry thinks. Then Malfoy rushes to fill the silence, and tells Harry about how Corbin is studying for an interdisciplinary Muggle/Magical degree—Oxford is one of the only universities in the world to offer such an experience to wizarding folk or people with magical backgrounds—and Hermione is actually his tutor. They chat about his work for a bit, Harry attempting to marry politeness with a brisk we-really-should-be-going vibe. Though this Corbin fellow is interesting, damn it. He obviously has a good theoretical knowledge of wizarding history, and of the way major events of the wizarding world affected the social and political climate of the Muggle world. He must be fairly clever too, Harry thinks, if Hermione has taken him on. Wonderful.

Malfoy finally—blessedly—ends the conversation, and with one last hug for Malfoy and another irritatingly composed handshake for Harry, Corbin saunters off towards Brasenose Lane. As he passes the bike rack on the corner, it begins to creak ominously as the bicycles parked there rattle in the stir of a growing breeze. Harry takes one satisfying moment to appreciate Corbin's look of alarm before Malfoy groans and begins to drag him away towards the Radcliffe Camera.

The Floo is being cleaned of course, and they have to wait in one of the magical niches in the ground floor. Malfoy seems impatient now too, and Harry doesn't resist the urge to haul him close, and slide his hand up into the soft fall of hair at the back of Malfoy's head. He kisses Malfoy with a sigh of relief that almost becomes a groan when Malfoy's mouth presses back hot and wicked against his, then really does groan in exasperation as he lets his forehead fall onto Malfoy's shoulder.

Malfoy is definitely laughing at him a little bit when he pats Harry's back soothingly and purrs, "There, there, Potter. Are you having a tough day? Do you want to tell me what your little weather display was about out there?"

Harry buries his face further into the soapy-sweet warmth of Malfoy's neck before he replies, so his voice is muffled. "I was jealous, ok? Are you happy now? I'm a horrible, petty person."

"Well Potter, I'm glad you've finally acknowledged your fairly significant failings. After all, I've been trying to bring them to your attention for years now. I hope that you intend to work on improving your….ouch, you absolute rotter, you know how ticklish I am! Get off!"

They're both laughing now, and Malfoy pokes Harry right in the soft part just under his ribcage before waving a dismissive hand. "Corbin is an old friend, Potter. I've known him since he was a baby. _And_ he's straight. So are you ready to get over yourself now and listen to what I did while you were fannying about having tea with Granger?"

Harry has a moment of internal struggle with himself before deciding to just let that one pass (though he fully intends to gloat later when he tells Malfoy how helpful Hermione had been about the instinctive magic). "Alright Malfoy, let's hear it then. What did you and _Corbin_ get up to over lunch?"

Harry can see that Malfoy's natural desire for a dramatic build-up is warring with his excited need to tell Harry his news immediately. 

"Well, Potter, I asked Corbin to bring a colleague of his along. Marta is doing interdisciplinary Magimuggle work here too. Her speciality is criminology. She studies the types of serious crimes committed in the magical world and compares them to Muggle crimes—it sounds like a very interesting sociological study. Anyway, it turns out that she had read about a case ten years ago, just like ours. Wizards and witches were being drained of their core power and left as Squibs. However, while the assailant did Obliviate them, the Unspeakables were able to restore their memories, and as a result the Aurors tracked her down. Her victims were extremely distressed, and all testified with Pensieve memories to get her banged up. But get this—she had to be held in a magic dampener cell, and eventually relocated to a Muggle prison. It turns out she had some strange parasitic power that means she can drain other wizards and funnel their magic into herself, and increase her power exponentially. She's like a vampire witch! But it meant she couldn't be around any spellcasting at all, or she'd start to suck the juice out of the caster. Very rare, apparently."

"So she is an empathomancer," Harry breathes, already mentally ticking through the details of the case and seeing how this fits in. It has that satisfying feeling of the click of a key in a stubborn lock. This makes sense.

Malfoy looks affronted. "How do _you_ know about it? Bloody hell, Potter—you couldn't let me have my moment of case-breaking glory?! Right, well—yes, she's an empathomancer. But that's not all. Seems she can exert emotional pull on people too—not Muggles, luckily, but anyone or anything with a magical core. One of her arresting aurors had to be restrained from hexing the rest of the team and helping her escape! Fascinating stuff. I've been thinking it over, and it looks as though she's seducing people into adoring her, and then draining them because she can funnel their power into her own core and make herself more powerful. And now we know why she's tampering with people's emotions. Because she learned her lesson the last time. If we start managing to restore the victims' memories, it won't really matter. Because none of her victims will agree to testify against her, and they won't offer up Pensieve memories to prove anything. And this explains why we were finding it so hard to catch her. She's had practice at this, and plenty of time to think about refining her technique. Because?"

"Because, she's done this before," Harry replies, and Malfoy's answering grin is swift and lethal. 

"Because she's done this before, Potter. She thinks she can get away with it this time. But she hasn't met us yet."

* * *

The next few days pass in a frenzy of research, digging out old case notes, and completing all the dull piecework that always follows a big break. Harry and Malfoy have a name—Violet Ryan—and a photograph. It's a still Muggle mugshot, taken almost ten years before, and shows a perfectly ordinary-looking woman. Malfoy and Harry spend hours picking over the minutiae of Violet's pre-prison life, tracking down her few family members and reviewing her known associates. They even have an address for her, from her probation officer, though the address is an old chippie, and they suspect that Violet has done a number on the probation officer, who can't quite specify when exactly he last saw Violet, but is very determined to convince Harry and Malfoy that everything is totally, completely in order. He's distinctly too jovial for a man who seems to have lost a probationer, and he's cheerfully vague about her whereabouts. 

It's all a load of dead ends, in fact. Their most promising lead is a cousin of hers, based in Whitby, where Violet had spent all her summers as a child. Stephen Ryan is known to the North Yorkshire Auror squad, in fact—he's a charming but feckless rich kid living in his mother's stately old Victorian house at the top of the cliff overlooking the sea. Has a few drunk and disorderly arrests, plus he had managed to squash a pretty nasty Potions dealing charge. That could have been upgraded to manslaughter after the young witch who ingested the modified Cheering draught died, but Stephen's legal counsel had managed to get him off the dealing charge scot-free on a technicality. He's a bad lot on a minor scale, long story short, and Harry and Malfoy want to squeeze him a bit and see if cousinly love has endured, or if he's as in the dark about Violet as everyone else.

The team from North Yorkshire has done a bit of covert work since Harry and Malfoy contacted them about Stephen, and they've confirmed that he's acting out of character recently—getting up early, staying sober, and he seems to have taken on some sort of manual labour work as he's spending his days in a warehouse on a wizarding industrial estate in Eskdale. They've had surveillance on him for a few days now, and though he's keeping his head down, Malfoy and Harry decide it's time to pay him a visit, and get a little look at whatever he's doing in that warehouse of his.

They Floo directly into the Wizarding Town Hall at Westerdale, then their contacts on the North Yorkshire force Side-Along them to a point on the hill with a good view of the warehouse. The industrial estate is a livid scar on the landscape, stark and grey against the heather-bound slopes and velvety greenness of the valley floor. All around them, rapeseed blooms violent and heavy.

Harry and Malfoy go in first, clean and open-handed and upfront, uniforms on and badges out. No one could claim that it's an aggressive approach, so they can hardly be blamed when the wandfight breaks out, and at least now they can be sure that Stephen is definitely up to something. They're barely through the door—taking note of the six wizards within, who are working on building some sort of large contraption—when one of the wizards rattles off a nasty Flaying curse that whistles so close past Harry's ear that he feels the vicious sting of it whisper cold and insidious over his skin. He's got the man out cold and trussed up in a Bind before the curse even hits the wall behind him—Harry is fast when he's pissed off, and he is _very_ pissed off.

Malfoy has another two Stunned by the time the two North Yorks aurors join the fray, so they're four against three now, and the three are desperate and reckless. It should be an easy wrap-up. Malfoy and Harry are moving smooth and lethal across the floor, alternating shields and hexes. They're totally seamless, but one of the aurors takes a stray Infirmus jinx and goes down hard, right in Malfoy's path. Malfoy's shield wavers, just for a heartbeat, but it's time enough for one of Stephen Ryan's Caestus hexes to slip through and get him hard right under the chin. 

His head snaps back, and he goes down on one knee with the force of it, but he springs back up on the balls of his feet within a second, and he looks ready to do some serious damage now. Harry flicks up a shield to take over from him, and Malfoy fixes the collar of his suit jacket with an elegant shrug. Then he slowly and deliberately leans over and spits out a mouthful of blood, staring at Stephen with narrowed eyes the whole time. Stephen falters slightly—sensible, really, Harry thought, as better casters than him had quailed in the face of Malfoy's cold rage many times before—and Malfoy smiles sweetly at him, eyes dancing. His lips and teeth are blood-limned, and he looks ferocious and untouchable. Harry's mouth goes dry, and he's pretty sure he shouldn't be finding Malfoy quite so attractive right now.

Malfoy flicks the end of his smile over to Harry, though he softens it with the barest hint of a wink, and Harry laughs back at him as they both advance on Stephen, who seems to have regained some of his self-preservation and is retreating fast. Harry's dimly aware that it's just Stephen left to subdue now—the others have already been Incarceroused and Side-Alonged away by the local aurors. 

Stephen ducks behind the apparatus that looms in the centre of the warehouse, and Harry and Malfoy's spells start bouncing and veering off course as they get closer to the apparatus. Someone—not Stephen, surely, this is high-level, subtle casting—has placed a beautiful, complex Shield charm around this thing. Harry and Malfoy need to know why.

Without even needing to confer, they split up to go around the huge contraption. Stephen is stumbling away now, spells abandoned as he makes for a door at the back of the building. Malfoy has a clear line on him, and though his viciously strong Body-Bind is almost casual, it takes Stephen down like a sack of potatoes. 

They run a quick diagnostic charm to ensure that the warehouse is clear, and then they turn to each other with matching smiles. Harry knows that Malfoy feels it too—the quickening rush of the blood, the ringing, bone-deep certainty, that come with a big break in a case. _Here it is_, he thinks, as they turn to face the machinery. 

Malfoy is already moving, shrugging his uniform jacket off, testing the Shield charm and the wards around the contraption. He's working both with his wand and wandlessly, casting big with his wand for overall checks, and then doing the delicate piecework by hand. Harry can see the silver threads of his diagnostic spells unspooling from the tips of his fingers, as he nudges at the outline of the Shield. The wards are already bulging and flexing under his ministrations, and Harry has yet to encounter a barring spell that Malfoy can't unpick. This one looks as though it's tricky though—Malfoy's top lip is gleaming faintly with a sheen of sweat, and his capable forearms are roped with veins from the effort of casting and re-casting. The back of his shirt is translucent, sticking wetly to the bunching muscles of his shoulders. Harry finds his face doing something that's probably appallingly affectionate, so he schools his features quickly and then concentrates on pulling a gentle wash of fresh air together, letting it roll over Malfoy and dip under the collar of his shirt. Malfoy spares him a half-grateful, half-exasperated look. 

Then, with a soft _oh_ of effort from Malfoy, and a final shimmer of the wards, the Shield charm falls away from the machine. It's magnificent—gleaming coils of metal stretching to the height of a doubledecker bus, with a massive, elegantly curved bowl angled on top. The skeleton of it seems to be made from Muggle materials, but as Malfoy keeps casting on it, the intricate tracery of spellwork bound into it starts to be revealed. Harry is fascinated, moving slowly around it, entranced by the delicate complexity of the casting. He pulls up a Stasis charm around Malfoy's spellwork so that Malfoy can take a break, and then he goes and stands behind Malfoy, hooking his chin over Malfoy's shoulder so they can both admire the machinery. They're quiet for a while, both just looking up, and Harry slides his hand around Malfoy until he can feel the reassuring press of Malfoy's every breath against his splayed fingers. Malfoy goes to shrug him off, telling him to piss off back to work and castigating him for being a distraction, but lifts Harry's hand and kisses the palm absent-mindedly before he moves away to resume his work, so Harry thinks the accusation of being a distraction is a bit rich, coming from him.

"Stephen didn't make this," Malfoy says decisively. "He could barely keep up his defensive spells without tripping over his own feet. He may have been building the Muggle part but he didn't create the magical part. The person who did this is powerful...subtle...enormously gifted. It must have been Violet. I wish I could make out what she's up to, but it's so complex. Maybe...yes! If I can just unspool these strands, then at least we can see what we're dealing with..."

Then he sweeps his wand arm in an arc before _shoving_ another bolt of magic after it, and the web of spells woven into the machine starts to judder. He grits his teeth and pushes again, so hard that Harry feels the familiar wash of his magic ricocheting back over the room. "What is it, though, Harry? _What is it_?"

The answer to his question comes unexpectedly, because before they even have time to notice, Violet Ryan appears beside them. There's no crack of Apparition, she's not holding a Portkey. She's just...there, all of a sudden, where nothing had been a second before. She's smiling at them, with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans as she rocks on the balls of her feet. She looks relaxed, and totally ordinary, but Harry can feel power rolling off her, monstrous and strong and overwhelming.

Her voice, when she speaks, is relaxed and good-humoured. "That's a good question, Auror...Auror? Ah, Malfoy, thank you. It's very simple, really. It's a transmitter."

* * *


	3. The Brightest Things

The real question, Harry thinks, is how in the name of Merlin are they going to get out of here. Because Violet seems friendly, but her magic certainly doesn't—it's a throbbing, pulsing flood of barely contained aggression—and they know she's already committed a long string of serious assaults. Malfoy seems to be having similar thoughts, but with his usual uncanny ability to read a situation, he has obviously come to the conclusion that there's no point in him going after Violet. He still has his wand out, and Harry can see that he's very subtly concentrating on doing some non-verbal spells—Severing charms, judging by the precise slashing motions he's making. So he's given up on trying to unravel the spells around the transmitter, and is going straight for the destructive approach, then. 

In a bid to distract Violet, Harry clears his throat and nods at her encouragingly, while he probes for more information from her. "What's the transmitter for, Violet? You know half of these warding spells you've put up are illegal for civilians."

Violet continues to smile at him gently. It's getting unnerving. "It's Auror Potter, isn't it? I recognise you from the _Prophet_. Unfortunately, this isn't a very good time for you to arrive. I'm rather in the middle of something, you see. In fact, I believe that you and Auror Malfoy have a rather pressing engagement elsewhere that you might need to run along to?" 

And then Harry feels a nudge from her magic—a pinprick of suggestion that niggles at him, making him want to do as she suggests. It's the same gentle pressure that comes with the Imperius, that desire for relieved surrender to someone else's will. Harry hates it. 

"That feels nice, doesn't it, Auror Malfoy? _You'd_ like to get going, wouldn't you?" Harry can see Malfoy's face changing in response to Violet, can see the moment when his focus slackens and dims. He picks his jacket up and pulls it back on. Violet nods at him approvingly, and then summons Malfoy's wand to her with a desultory flick of her fingers. "I'm sorry, Auror Malfoy. I can't let you keep doing that to my spells. I'm fast, but I've put weeks of work into those. Although I wasn't as strong when I started—I would probably be quicker now.

"That reminds me, gentlemen, I've just left someone else in need of your assistance. A lovely woman, very fond of me, and a very potent magical core." She dabs at her mouth with her fingers, delicately and fastidiously, as though finishing up a rather fine meal. "Unfortunately, when I was leaving she wasn't feeling very well. I gave her back her wand so that she could call for help, but it didn't seem to be working very well for her. Perhaps you could go to offer her some assistance?" 

Malfoy moves towards the door willingly, without even noticing that she's still holding his wand. Harry takes a step after him, though he's still fighting against Violet's pull. He shakes his head to try to clear it, and he feels his hair lift and dip in a slight breeze. It's refreshing, and makes him feel a bit sharper, and he raises his hand up and thinks, _Malfoy_! From his upturned palm, a fresh wind skips over to Malfoy, whistling around him and caressing the silver-gilt of his hair, causing the back of his uniform coat to snap and flutter against his thighs. He pauses, then turns, face a careful blank.

Violet frowns at Malfoy, and tells them again, sharply and reprovingly this time, that it's time to go. Harry feels the push again, his body's desire to give in to her commands, but before Malfoy can start to leave again, Harry whips another breeze around him, stronger this time, causing him to sway gently. He shakes his head, and Harry see his eyes clear. Violet looks around for the source of the wind, and Harry can see that she's growing irritated. She's distracted for a split-second, but it's all Malfoy needs. He's still unarmed, but Harry can see the force of his casting vibrating through him as he flings a wandless _Diffindo_ at the transmitter. He's always been fast and accurate, deadly with a jinx, and the pale pink trail of the spell hits the transmitter exactly where Harry would have aimed for—right where the pulsing web of Violet's spellwork is interwoven thickest. It trembles and shivers for a second, trying to remain intact, but Malfoy's eye hasn't failed him. As they watch, the magical mechanism of the transmitter collapses in a shower of sparks and a resentful hiss. The metal buckles, the muggle steel unable to withstand the onslaught of so much disintegrating magic. Harry isn't an expert in magi-engineering, but he's pretty sure the transmitter is fucked. 

Violet surveys the wreckage of her creation impassively. She looks unmoved, but Harry can feel her rage building through the flood of fury from her magic. The tension of it tightens and throbs like something living—something muscular and lethal and predatory.

Even as her finger twitches towards Malfoy, Harry is moving, wand arm slicing through the air as he tries desperately to raise a _Protego_. Violet brushes his shield aside as though it were made of paper, and with a careless sweep of her hand, Malfoy crumples to the floor, his sightless eyes rolling back in his head, the pellucid lids fluttering shut, his lips white and bloodless. He's disturbingly still.

* * *

"Don't worry, he's not dead."

The swoop of relief in Harry's stomach feels like the long drop after you come off a broom—you're ok for now, yes, but you know the worst is yet to come once you hit the ground. Malfoy still hasn't moved—he _could_ be dead, for all Harry knows. He feels a queasy sort of horror at the very thought, and a panicky squall of wind rushes pellmell around the warehouse, scattering blueprints and causing the mangled remains of the metal girders to groan and bow. 

Violet moves towards Malfoy, and nudges him dispassionately with one booted foot. Harry can see the uneven flutter of Malfoy's pulse hammering at the base of his throat, beating time with the surge of Harry's own heartbeat. A gentle whisper of air stirs the hair on Malfoy's forehead, smoothing it away from the serene blank of his unconscious face. He's beautiful, unguarded like this, but he looks as unlike himself as Harry has ever seen him. He's not Harry's Malfoy without the curl of his expressive mouth, without the glitter of intelligence in the grey eyes, without the constant play of emotions across his face. Violet has wiped Malfoy clean, and Harry hates her for it.

"Nope," she says cheerfully, "He's definitely still alive. Can't get at all that lovely core power if he's dead, after all! And I definitely want a go at _that_."

She glances down at Malfoy again, her gaze turning lascivious, and she licks her lips. 

"Look, Harry—hope you don't mind me calling you Harry, I feel like I know you from the papers!—this isn't how I wanted things to go today. It was bad luck, you two bursting in like that. And very bad luck for him that he decided to meddle with my transmitter."

She sighs heavily, looking at the ruin of her creation. One crook of her finger, and the metal shrieks as it starts to bend and remould itself. 

"It was _so_ close to being finished, you know. Look at all my gorgeous spellwork, it's in tatters! I didn't expect anyone to get through that _Protego_. He is _good_, that Malfoy of yours, isn't he? I'm really going to enjoy him."

She begins to rearrange the metal in earnest, reshaping the girders, realigning the struts. 

Harry still has his wand, of course, and he starts to move slowly towards Malfoy. Once he's sure he's between Malfoy and Violet, he fires off an Auror-strength Stunner at Violet. She doesn't even seem to have a shield up, but his spell melts away from her like sudsy water down a drain. She laughs a bit, a fond, exasperated sound, and makes a quick brushing motion at Harry. He finds himself knocked backwards onto the ground, gently but firmly, until he's seated next to Malfoy.

When she speaks again, she sounds totally unruffled, though she's moving the huge hunks of metal around with a precision and control that Harry could never have imagined.

"It's too late to do anything, you know. Every time someone offers me up their magic, I just get stronger. Even a week or two ago, I needed the help of my idiot cousin just to get this part built. Now look at me!" She raises a hand, fingers extended gracefully, and the whole frame of the transmitter lurches upwards. She laughs delightedly, her face aglow with pride and madness. For the first time, Harry starts to feel properly afraid of her. She's not going to stop, he realises.

"You're saying that people offer you their magic as though they have a choice," Harry spits out, voice thready and sharp with fear. "You're beguiling them, warping their minds. They're not offering anything. You're forcing them to love you, and then you're stealing from them, violating them. You make me sick."

"Harry. You disappoint me, truly. I'm not stealing anything. I'm giving them a gift. You, of all people, should be able to imagine what freedom there can be in having all your worries and responsibilities taken away from you. And in fact, it wouldn't do any harm at all for my plans if you're on side. Yes, actually, it'll suit me nicely to have the Boy Who Lived working with me on this."

Harry feels the whip and pull of the wind that springs up, even before it hits. The tart, ozoney note of wilderness it brings with it bolsters him, helps him to gather his courage.

"You have _got_ to be joking me," he says scornfully (Malfoy himself couldn't have summoned more disdain in only seven words). "I will never work with you. You'll have to kill me before I'll let you drain my core. And if I can throw off the Imperius, I can certainly shake off your pathetic attempt. You've never been in a fair fight, before. You think no one can take you on. You're so bloody short-sighted!"

There's a high, thin whine coming from the wind now, as it gathers intensity and begins to circle Violet menacingly. 

"You are not listening to me!" she shouts, and her face is creased with anger. "It doesn't matter what you want. As soon as this transmitter is done, no one is going to resist me. I got the idea from Muggles, you know. Once I have this fixed, and all my spellwork recast and reconnected, I'll be able to broadcast my adfectomancy. It'll funnel my pull into everyone nearby, all at once. I'm not naturally an adfectomancer, did you know that? My power is empathomancy—since the moment I picked up a wand, I've been able to use the magic other people send out into the world to increase my own strength. But I've learned that, with enough power, I can do anything. So I practiced—worked on charming people, showing them that they want to do things for me, teaching them how to do what I want them to. And I learned fast. I can make them fall in love with me, or think of me as their best friend, or throw themselves under a bus for me—not that I would, of course!"

Her voice drops, becomes low and confiding. "My biggest mistake the last time was draining people without first making them love me. It meant that I was accused of all sorts of nasty things. This time round, I know not to make the same mistake. That's why I taught myself adfectomancy, learned how to slip into people's feelings and tweak them just so, take away all their worries and increase their joy. It's worked a treat! And once my transmitter is ready—well, the potential is limitless. 

"It's a real shame, but at the moment I can only work on people at close range, and only one at a time, and it's _painfully_ slow. If I can charm lots of people all at once, then I'll be able to get more of them to give up their power, and quicker. No one will be able to withstand me. But even better, no one will _want_ to."

If Harry had ever doubted Violet's danger, the look on her face as she speaks whips that doubt away. She has the glazed, sightless expression of bliss that makes Harry think of statues of medieval saints—she is beyond the constraints of right and wrong at this point. Harry has to stop her, because she sure as hell isn't going to stop herself.

"I can change the world for people! I can take away their worries and make them happy forever. How can you think that's a bad thing? Once the transmitter is working, it'll magnify everything I put into it. So all that lovely, calm, generous serenity will just flow out of me, and through everyone nearby. I'll be able to just walk up to anyone I meet and they'll be offering their power up in the blink of an eye. I can't wait."

She's swaying back and forth now with the thrust and wane of Harry's wind, and she has to raise her voice to be heard above the shriek of the gale.

"I'll admit, I didn't intend to start making people into Squibs. For a while, it was enough to just sip at them a little, take a tiny taste. But I couldn't be expected to just stop there, when there was all this rich magic for the taking. Harry, once you've gorged yourself on the very essence of someone's inner self—once you've taken the deepest draught of that wellspring of power—you can never stop. And why should I? I'm giving them endless peace and they're giving me endless power—it's a fair trade. Do you know how many people have such a gift as mine, Harry? It's rare beyond measure. I deserve everything I get!"

Beside Harry, Malfoy stirs a little. At first, Harry thinks it's just the wind that is rippling over him, but then he sees Malfoy's fingers twitch, and there's a definite gleam of intelligence in the blanched halfmoon of Malfoy's opening eyes.

It's this that propels Harry to his feet. He has to keep Violet away from Malfoy, keep her mind off draining Malfoy's core. Malfoy, without his magic—it's inconceivable. Magic is as much a part of Malfoy as the quirk of his brow, the breadth of his shoulders, the single-mindedness of his vision, the tenacity of his spirit. 

Harry shouts into the howl of the gale, the wind ripping his words from him. 

"And what the hell are you going to do with all that power?" he roars. "Once you've siphoned off everyone you meet, once you're bursting with it, once you have the world at your feet—what then? Are you going to rule over us? Make us slaves? How are people supposed to live without their magic? There are wizarding folk who have never made a meal without magic, never _gotten dressed_ without a wand to help them. You're going to leave people helpless. You're a monster!"

Violet stands still, but her body sways and bends like a tree in a storm with the force of the wind around her. Harry can see her mouth moving, but he doesn't think she's saying anything. She seems shocked at her own confusion, and Harry realises she had never thought about what she was going to do with so much power. She had never thought of anything beyond that first wild excess of stolen magic, beyond the trickle of power that roars into a flood, beyond the unutterable sweetness of being _special_. Harry sneers. This is just megalomania, and he's dealt with that before.

He calls his wind back to him, letting it strain through his outstretched fingers and fill all the space between him and Violet. Intuitive magic recognises its like—Harry may not be able to fight Violet with his core power, but it looks as though she's fair game up against his meteorolomancy. And if he can defend himself against her, then surely he can attack with his intuitive magic too? 

Harry takes a moment, just enough time to breathe in and feel into the atmosphere around him. The magic is there, waiting for him. It's vibrating impatiently in the very molecules of the air, desperate to be harnessed. He takes it—takes all of it into himself—until the thrum of it pulses through his bloodstream and knocks at his bones from the inside out. He feels ripe and swollen with power.

When it all leaves him, Harry feels his arms and head fall back with the force of it. The wind is a feral thing, hissing and growling as it builds into a frenzy around Violet. For one small moment, lost in the glory that comes with unleashing so much raw power, Harry can understand Violet's desire to keep collecting magic, to gather it all to herself, greedily and without compunction. 

Violet has been lifted off her feet now, and is hanging helplessly in the air, limbs loose and neck bared to the storm. Harry concentrates on containing her, keeping her surrounded by the ferocious squalls. It's getting harder, holding on to her. He feels tired, suddenly, and he notices that his limbs are shaking with the effort of maintaining the gusts. A drop of sweat rolls down his forehead, trembles at his brow. His hands feel heavy, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. He blinks up at Violet—it's hard to see her properly, and when did she become so blurry?—but it looks as though she's laughing. That can't be right, surely?

Slowly, Harry becomes aware that Malfoy's on his feet, shouting something at him. His voice echoes at Harry, as though it's coming from far away, and Harry has to concentrate hard to understand what Malfoy is telling him.

"Potter, Potter! _Harry_! You have to stop! She's feeding off your bloody weather magic, you absolute idiot! Cut her off—_now_!"

Harry can sense her, now that he's aware of it—can feel her gobbling up his magic in great voracious gulps. He's cold to his bones from it, and every part of him feels heavy. With a massive effort, he wrenches what he can back from Violet, tugging his magic back out of the snapping jaws of her power-sapping energy. 

The silence when the wind dies is deafening. It's like being in the eye of the storm. Harry can hear the throb of his own pulse echoing in his ears, and then, as though it's coming from someone else, the soft exhalation he makes as he crumples to the ground. 

* * *

Violet _is_ laughing, though Harry can't seem to muster up the energy to be angry with her anymore. She's panting hard, and her smile is dazzling with triumph.

When she stands over Harry, she can't even bring herself to look sorry. "I really didn't want to do this, you know. It would have been much less painful if you had just let me in, let me soothe it all away for you beforehand. But don't worry, I'll have you all fixed up in a jiffy."

She kneels beside Harry, and her hand is as tender as a lover's on the sweat-filmed heat of his brow. He tries to get the strength to say something—anything! To beg, if needs be. What comes out is just a wheeze, a pathetic whimper, a wet-sounding cough. He's broken, he thinks. 

"Okay, Harry, relax," Violet croons, and she closes her eyes. Harry can feel her invading him. She's tugging at his magical core, plundering his power, and Harry is too weak to do anything to stop her. He lies back, helpless tears burning his eyes. 

Dimly, Harry realises that Malfoy is moving again. Violet seems to have forgotten him, as she kneels next to Harry and coaxes his magic to her. A faint fuzz of gold is beginning to lift off Harry, like dawn mist on the grass, and as Violet gathers it to her, it brightens. But Malfoy is behind her now, fast and taut with awareness, like a dangerous animal. 

Malfoy raises a finger to his lips, and if Harry wasn't feeling so weak, he'd probably roll his eyes at that, and then Malfoy drops to one knee and slides something out of his boot. It's a knife—nothing elaborate, nothing magical, nothing showy. Just a knife, but Harry can see by the way the light bends off the blade that it's lethally sharp. 

It all depends on speed, Harry realises, speed and silence. Luckily for him, Malfoy is unerringly fast and quiet as a cat. Harry, lying there with his head aching and his limbs soft as butter, can only think about how beautiful Malfoy is when he's totally intent on something. Violet, who could grind Malfoy's bones to dust with one twist of her wrist, never even hears him coming. 

She's still kneeling when Malfoy gets behind her and, with one unflinching motion, yanks her head back and draws the knife across her throat. Harry can almost hear the sing of the blade as it moves beyond skin and tendons and vessels, slicing silkily through both carotids. Violet doesn't stand a chance. She's unconscious within seconds, and all her stolen power dies with her when she goes, quietly and alone in a spreading pool of her own blood. 

Malfoy never even glances at her again, and though his eyes are wild and panicked, he forces his face into an expression of calm as he takes Harry into his arms.

"Alright, Harry, easy does it. I've got you."

Harry smiles up at him, but then coughs a little more into his hand as Malfoy brings him to sitting. His breathing feels wrong, and his mouth tastes too slick and metallic. When he looks down at himself, he can see a spray of blood across his front. He reaches for Malfoy, and winces when his fingers leave a trail of blood on a too-pale cheek, glistening obscenely wet and livid. He looks at Malfoy in surprise. 

"Draco, I think that blood is coming from me."

Malfoy goes even whiter, but his voice is steady. 

"I know, Harry. I think you might have a bit of internal bleeding. You need to stay very still for me—it's nothing they won't be able to fix at St Mungo's, so I'm going to take you Side-Along as soon as I've put a Stasis charm over you, ok? And look at it this way, at least now you'll have to bin that hideous shirt."

Harry laughs and coughs again, and then grabs at Malfoy in a panic as he drenches his chin in fresh blood.

"Malfoy, wait! Draco...I just wanted to tell you something…just in case I..." That wet cough is infuriating, getting in the way of what he needs to say. "Draco, you're my...I mean, I'm in…"

Malfoy cuts him off, voice as sharp as his blade. Strange how the familiar ring of fury in Malfoy's voice can make Harry feel a bit better, he thinks.

"Absolutely _not_, Potter. I'm not listening to some sort of touching deathbed declaration, you unmitigated fucker. If you're trying to tell me that you love me here, in a filthy old warehouse, next to the body of the psychopath who I just _murdered_ to save you, then think again."

He's still holding Harry a little bit too hard, terror and worry vibrating through his grip and whitening his knuckles, but then he smiles, and it holds his whole heart in it when he looks down at Harry. 

"You're being an unromantic twat, Potter. You can bloody well wait until the Healers have pumped you full of core replenisher and _Resanguinis_ potion and discharged you so that I can take you home, and say it back to you, and then fuck you so slowly you think you're going to cry. Is that clear?"

It is clear, and it's enough for now, Harry finds, and he waits quietly while Malfoy gropes under Violet's body for his wand. Then Malfoy whispers the Stasis charm, the cool wash of his casting like a calming draught, and he stands to Apparate.

"Sorry about this, Potter," he says gravely, "but needs must," and he scoops Harry up into his arms, all lean, straining muscle and warm, solid chest. Harry is fairly certain that he shouldn't be quite so fixated on how sexy it is that Malfoy can...take care of him, just like that. But then Malfoy is twisting into Apparition, and holding Harry as though he's something delicate and precious. And when they arrive at St Mungo's, Malfoy refuses to put Harry down, and instead strides straight past the Welcome Wizard at the desk, and honest-to-Merlin _kicks_ through the double doors into the emergency ward while furiously demanding the best Healer they can find, and Godric help anyone who lets Harry Potter bleed to death on their watch. 

Ordinarily Harry would be mortified, but the whole display is just so commanding and masterful that he gives up on anything except thinking how very fucking hot Malfoy is. He just chalks it down to lightheadedness induced by blood loss, and resolves to enjoy it. But then, suddenly, the wooziness is getting worse, and the coughing has become retching, and Harry just has time to wonder if he should have insisted on making that deathbed declaration after all, before the edges of the world begin to darken and his eyes start to shut.

The last thing he sees is Malfoy, pinched and milk-white with worry, pressing a hard kiss to Harry's bloody mouth and whispering furiously, "Don't die, Potter. Don't you dare fucking die."

* * *

Harry doesn't die, though he discovers afterwards it's a close thing. There is a lot of bleeding, but Harry's magical core is so weak that the team of Healers has to stabilise that at the same time so that they can throw more Healing spells at him. Harry's out cold for most of it, and it takes him days to come around properly, though he wakes, briefly and at odd hours, a few times. 

Malfoy is always there, asleep in a chair beside the bed, or sitting on the windowsill reading a book in the watery spring sunshine, or hovering over Harry, his hand a cool press against Harry's cheek. Malfoy is dressed, oddly, in Healers' scrubs, and the harsh, stripped-back odour of disinfectant clings to his skin. Harry is touched when he realises that it's because Malfoy clearly hasn't left the hospital, not even to get a proper shower and change of clothes, and he has to close his eyes against those treacherous bloody tears that start up again. 

The next time he wakes, it's the darkest part of the night, and Malfoy is still beside him. This is what safety feels like, Harry thinks.

Beside him, Malfoy stirs and stretches. Harry thinks he's probably allowed to touch, so he reaches out and cups his hand around the back of Malfoy's neck, where the muscles are tight and coiled from worry and sleeping in chairs. 

When Harry speaks, his voice is gravelly with disuse. "A knife, Malfoy? What was that all about?"

Malfoy smiles. "After I got shot, I didn't ever want to be unprepared again. I actually wanted a gun of my own, but Muggles have all these strict rules about buying those, did you know that? So they wouldn't give one to me."

Harry has to laugh, then, at Malfoy's petulant tone, and he mutters, "My father will hear about this," but under his breath because Malfoy _did_ save his life, and also if he wants to show Malfoy that he loves him, he can't take this piss out of him too much.

Malfoy gives him a suspicious glare, but continues with pointed brightness. "But the knife did the trick in the end, didn't it? Just about, though. Anyone but you would have been left a Squib, or worse. But the Healers—and more importantly, Hermione, who I trust more than any of them, and who's fairly ticked off at you for not telling her about your meteorolomancy, by the way—reckon that Violet managed to leach away all your excess magic, but that your core is fine. Or it will be anyway, once you've rested up a bit."

Harry tries to feel around outside of himself for any sense of magic in the wind, but there's nothing there at all. Instead, his core magic is coiled warm and solid at his heart centre, just where it should be, purring like a contented cat. "_Lumos!_" he whispers, and warm light blinks into his palm and casts its glow onto Malfoy, gilding the finely-wrought curve of his cupid's bow and picking up the coarse glint of stubble along his jawline. 

"Malfoy, what I was trying to say to you back in the warehouse…"

Malfoy blinks, and flushes a pretty pink from his cheekbones to the tips of his ears. It's as unexpected as it is gorgeous, seeing Malfoy so unguarded, and Harry stares in delight as Malfoy glares at him self-consciously.

"Yes Potter, I have some ideas about that. But first, I wondered if you might want to take a little bit of time to think about it. You were in the middle of a bit of a near-death experience, after all. No hard feelings if you want to forget the whole thing."

Harry watches Malfoy as he speaks, like he's been watching him for over half his life. He sees pride warring with hope. He sees the studied reserve that overlays Malfoy's expressive face—the face that has never really been able to hide anything from Harry. If Harry has ever had questions about his feelings for Malfoy, then the rush of fondness and protectiveness and desire that suffuses him in that moment answers them for him.

"Malfoy," he says carefully. "I thought I was going to die. And in that moment, I knew. I just _knew_ what I had to say to you."

Malfoy swallows, hard.

"Draco, if anything ever happens to me...I want you to have my collection of designer shirts. And I want you to wear them every day, in memory of me. Will you promise me that?"

He manages to keep it up for a split-second, but Malfoy's face is so eloquent with horror that Harry can't keep the peals of amusement in, and even though it hurts like a bugger to laugh, he ends up doubled over and wheezing and wiping his eyes anyway.

Malfoy's voice is liquid with disdain when he answers, though amusement softens his eyes to something like tenderness. "Potter, if I wasn't afraid of finishing off what Violet started, I'd hex your bollocks off for you right now. And I'd have to be dead myself before you'd catch me in one of your vile cast-offs."

The impact of his stern little speech is undercut by the surprised squeak he makes as Harry grabs him around the waist and hauls him into the narrow hospital bed until they're arranged around each other, sprawled warm and languid like puppies. 

It's a bit easier to chat when Harry has his face buried in the warm silk of Malfoy's hair. 

"Draco, what I didn't say back in the warehouse—it doesn't really need saying, I suppose. It's just…a fact. Has been for a while, really. Nothing will change between us if you decide you're not in, I promise. But I don't think there's a single Healer in the emergency spell damage ward that didn't see you kissing me. It'll be all over the _Prophet_ soon"—and then he sighs as Malfoy wordlessly summons the newspaper he had been reading to show the headline—"okay, it's already all over the _Prophet_. We can try to cover it up, hope Robards believes us. Because I want you, and if that's how I have to have you, then I'll do it. Merlin knows I'm not any good at staying away from you. But…" 

And here he pauses, picking his words carefully, so that they don't fall wrong and cause a bruise. 

"But we're lucky, Draco. We know what it's like to have absolute faith in each other. We're in this about as deep as we can be, it seems to me. Don't you think that keeping this a secret cheapens it, just a bit? Surely we should be acting as though this is...well, precious?"

He lifts each of Malfoy's hands in turn, and kisses the fluttering pulsepoint at each wrist, then wraps Malfoy back up in his arms so that he can run both hands along the graceful ridge of Malfoy's spine.

Malfoy's gaze is steady and speculative, as he watches Harry waiting to hear what he has to say.

"Funny you should say that, Potter. I actually owled my resignation in to Robards two days ago. He's fairly satisfied that I acted in self-defence, but he still needs to conduct a review, and it's going to be a massive ballache. We'd have been consigned to deskwork for months anyway, while they investigate.

"I've spent nearly ten years working my arse off at that job, all to prove something to myself, or to the world. I've put everything into my work, but when you were bleeding all over your Prada, and looking pretty bloody sorry for yourself, I realised that I don't ever want another day to go by where I don't get to put my hands on you. I'm bloody good at what I do—why shouldn't I be just as good at a different job? I could do any number of things, but there's only ever going to be one you, Potter. So I'm in, if you're asking."

Harry says, slowly, "There was that international security firm who were looking for investigators—do you remember, they tried to headhunt us at the Minister's summer gala? All that guff about prestigious clients and tracing dark objects and unravelling curses? I kept their card. It sounded pretty good, I thought. It was just...I didn't really fancy going alone, you know?"

Malfoy has always known exactly what Harry is really saying, and there doesn't really seem to be much else left to talk about. They do spare a delighted few minutes to contemplate exactly what level of thunderous Robards' eyebrows are going to achieve when he gets Harry's letter of resignation.

In the middle of it all, Harry's stroking hands move from absent-minded to intent—he's keen to make the best of the crowded conditions in the tiny bed, after all. Malfoy is initially more cautious—internal bleeding in the person you love will do that to you, he claims, but as he's groaning low and cupping Harry's hardening cock as he says it, it lacks his usual conviction. 

Harry compromises by allowing Malfoy to lock the door and put up the _Muffliato_, but he's insistent on the fact that they are both going to come, and soon—it seems that near-death experiences involving Malfoy act as an aphrodisiac for Harry, and he still hasn't thanked Malfoy properly for all the carrying and masterful kicking of doors and the knife in the boot. 

Harry doesn't need magic for this part, after all—this is all hands and tongues and cocks, and the shocking intimacy of a shared gasp, and the rising heat of skin on skin.

"You promised me you'd take me slowly," Harry gasps, as he hurtles from the first lick of desire to a blaze of ball-tightening need far faster than someone who only recently regained consciousness should be able for.

Malfoy's reply is almost lost in the frantic movement of his mouth over Harry's, but Harry hears and understands. 

"We move at our own speed, Potter. Now, come for me." 

Harry does. After all, he's spent years learning that it's always best to go along with Malfoy's plans. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [@tackytigerfic on Tumblr](https://tackytigerfic.tumblr.com/) and would really love for you to come and say hello if you'd like to!


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